Is Xbox Game Pass and xCloud coming soon to Android TV?

Reddit user /el_gonz87 has discovered the Android TV version of the Game Pass banner in the Game Pass Android app. His Reddit post reads, “Just ripped the latest Game Pass APK updated via Google Play Store from my Android tablet and to my surprise it had an Android TV banner built into it… Seems we may get Game Pass officially on Android TV very soon!”

While Microsoft’s game streaming service, xCloud is the app that gives access to users to stream games on Android and iOS, users can play games available on the Game Pass subscription service on their mobile device using xCloud. 

Playing Xbox games on your smart TV via Microsoft’s Cloud gaming service isn't new information. In an interview with The Verge back in 2020, Head of Xbox Phil Spencer, was asked, “What’s stopping you from saying, okay, Xbox is an app, it has minimum hardware specs, and we’re just going to run it on a smart TV?” To which Phil Spencer responded, “I think you’re going to see that in the next 12 months. I don’t think anything is going to stop us from doing that. I thought what you said about the TV was spot on. What we used to call a TV was a CRT that’s just throwing an image on the back of a piece of glass that I’m looking at. Now, as you said, a TV is really more of a game console stuffed behind a screen that has an app platform and a Bluetooth stack and a streaming capability. Is it really a TV anymore or is it just the form and function of the devices that we used to have around our TV, consolidated into the one big screen that I’m looking at?”  

While Microsoft has combined its xCloud streaming service with Game Pass Ultimate, the service isn't available everywhere. While there were reports of xCloud launching in India in 2020-2021, it looks like we will have to wait longer due to the ongoing pandemic.

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