The holidays are approaching, and it has been a few years since the gaming company, Xbox, has released a new variation or generation of its console. So, you know what that means: buy your child the new Xbox Series X or S this Christmas! Except this time, the console isn’t only significantly better than the previous generation, it is also introducing the future of gaming: Cloud streaming.

Xbox is reinventing how people access and play video games with their Project xCloud. They want to enter the mobile gaming industry without producing hardware and remodeling the Xbox to play like the Nintendo Switch. Instead, their plan is making your personal smartphone or tablet a portable console by streaming video games directly to your screen.

Mobile gaming is a huge market without any AAA games (large budgeted and marketed games usually released on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and/or Switch). People want to play games on their phones, and they settle for simple and entertaining games that only require two actions, one for each thumb. The high demand for high quality mobile games was confirmed with the incredible success of the Nintendo Switch for all demographics. The Nintendo Switch is a portable console that can switch from mobile to displaying directly to your television.

Traditionally, Nintendo consoles and games were most appealing to a younger audience or nostalgic adults who played those games as children. This trend was confirmed with lackluster sales of M17+ rated games (video games designed and marketed for adults). However, a couple of years after the Switch’s release, the demographic of gamers has increased in range, and now almost every M17+ AAA video game is being released or rebooted onto the Switch.

Xbox recognized this trend and decided to up the ante of portable and mobile gaming with streaming. The ability to stream your video games is huge for two reasons: you can play whenever, wherever (given you have internet access), and you do not need to download the games to access them. The conveniency factor means that you can play while walking or while on the bus, subway, or passenger seat, as long as you have a controller designed for mobile gaming.

The biggest problem most gamers worry about is the incredible amount of storage space a game may occupy. Most phones do not hold more than 512GB of space, and many video games are surpassing over 100GB of space by themselves. That means you can have a smartphone with only 16GB of space and still experience the xCloud Game Pass at its full capacity without worrying about downloading times and space through cloud gaming.

Xbox has acknowledged the potential of streaming video games, and they are currently exploring the ability to stream onto your PC. Next would be the ability to stream onto your console. Ultimately, Xbox may alter the entire video game industry with a purely streaming platform like Netflix where you don’t have to worry about hard drive space or download speeds. You can start a game whenever, wherever, however, and without any stress.