Xbox Cloud Gaming steps up with 1440p quality — and no extra lag

Cloud gaming has always promised console-level visuals without the box under your TV. The reality has usually fallen short, but Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming might finally be closing that gap. Recent findings show the service quietly experimenting with higher resolutions.

Reports from earlier this month hinted that new settings reach up to 1440p. Now, the team at Digital Foundry has tested the feature in practice by streaming Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. And what they have found is quite intriguing (via Pure Xbox).

One of the testers was heard sharing their experience with Xbox Cloud Gaming’s bumped-up resolution in the above video. He goes:

I played Avatar for, I don’t know, half an hour, an hour or so, and I actually took to a particular save game where I know there’s a lot of volumetrics going on… this is a dramatic improvement, I’d say, over the xCloud I know

The interesting part is how latency remained unaffected, as the tester said, “The latency doesn’t seem to be impacted, and that was always one of the good things about a fully functional xCloud… this is so much better.”

That being said, the test only lasted about an hour, but it clearly hints at how far the platform has come. The possibility of stable 1440p streaming could be a game-changer for how players use Xbox.

Only time will tell when the upgraded quality rolls out widely. But if Microsoft does roll out this to the masses, alongside the slashed price of Xbox Cloud Gaming, it would be the icing on the cake.