Report: Microsoft building game-streaming tech, 'Arcadia'

Microsoft has job openings within a new cloud-based Operating Systems Group, and one of the listings says the project is called "Arcadia." ZDNet reports that Arcadia is a new streaming system built on the Azure cloud and is poised to replace Microsoft's Rio game-streaming tech. Arcadia will stream games and apps to Microsoft devices, the site says. Halo 5 on your Windows Phone, anyone?

One of Microsoft's job listings reads, in part, as follows: "The new Operating Systems Group (OSG) Streaming team is leveraging the cloud to bring premium and unique experiences to Microsoft's core platforms. These experiences take advantage of a new geo-distributed massively scaling service to redefine what is possible on today's devices. The client team is building the user facing application(s), bridging the service and devices together seamlessly. Our team is a small but growing and dedicated to solving one of Microsoft's biggest business challenges in a creative fashion."

Both job listings note that experience with iOS and Android app development is "a plus." As Engadget points out, this technology is most likely a long way off, since the development team isn't even finalized yet.

Sony has its own game-streaming system, PlayStation Now, and that's in beta on PS4, Vita and PS TV, well, now.