Xbox's 'Project xCloud' starts rolling out to testers in Western Europe

As previously announced, Microsoft's nascent game streaming service Project xCloud is finally expanding to testers across Western Europe.

As of writing, we've verified that testers in France and Germany are now able to access Project xCloud Xbox Game Streaming alongside regular console-to-phone game streaming. The full list of countries that are supposed to be included in this wave are as follows:

• Belgium
• Denmark
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Ireland
• Italy
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Spain
• Sweden

In our preliminary testing of the service in Germany, we've found that it works incredibly well, with minimal lag. It actually feels somehow better than streaming directly from a console on my home network. That said, the initial load speed is still slow, taking anywhere up to a minute or more to spin up a server for you and load the game. Future server upgrades should rectify this, as Microsoft moves away from the mechanical HDDs in the old Xbox consoles (used in the server racks), to the NVME drives found in the next-gen Xbox Series X.

While it's encouraging that xCloud continues to roll out, there's still no information about pricing, launch libraries, and general availability. Project xCloud is slated for launch sometime in 2020, but it's unknown if the global pandemic may impact timelines.

Have you had a chance to test out xCloud yet? Let us know your thoughts.

Related: How to sign up for Project xCloud