You can now stream your Xbox One games to your Android phone for free

Microsoft is releasing a new Xbox app for Android today that includes an overhauled design and the ability to remotely play Xbox games streamed directly from your console. The Xbox remote play feature, known previously as Console Streaming, lets you remotely connect to an Xbox One console and play games you’ve already downloaded to it.

This is different from Microsoft’s xCloud service, as anyone with an Android phone can now stream all of their games directly from their own Xbox One console. xCloud currently only works with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate titles, and games are streamed from Microsoft’s cloud servers instead. Here’s a brief look at the differences in a hands-on from last year:

Alongside the game streaming addition, the Xbox app for Android has also been updated with a new design that’s clearly tied in with the new dashboard changes coming to Xbox One and Xbox Series X / S. The next-gen Xbox consoles come with an updated controller that includes a new share button, and this updated Xbox app is designed to complement that. The app will let you know once a capture is done and uploaded, and you can then share it quickly to social media networks like Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and more.

This new Xbox app is also designed to make it easier to set up an Xbox Series X or S console in November. You can use the mobile app to configure settings, all while a console downloads its relevant updates. The app will also support the ability to install any games to your home console, manage a game library, and free up storage space, or simply use it as a remote control to navigate an Xbox console.

Microsoft’s new Xbox app is available in beta for Android phones and tablets from Google’s Play Store. Microsoft makes no mention of iOS here, but the mobile app will also be updated for iPhone soon too. It’s just highly unlikely that remote streaming of Xbox One games will be enabled as part of the update for iOS.