“Power and performance you can feel, defines Project Scarlett,” said Xboss Phil Spencer of the console whose future lies in the cloud. Shown off at E3 2019, not too much detail was revealed but what was streamed out of the Nokia Center wasn’t just a single device. It was an ecosystem that will connect across consoles and ecosystems.

Over the last couple of years since Xboss Phil Spencer took over the brand, things have changed for Microsoft. Their E3 press conference has evolved into a blitzkrieg of trailers that highlight third-party and first-party games for the Xbox One and PC, a show that has minimal waffling and maximum excitement. Last year’s show was especially good, a highlight reel of expected and new games for team green. This year? That show is going to run a full two hours.

What does the next generation hold in store for gamers? If current trends are to be believed, it’s a future where streaming games plays a large role. Microsoft and Sony are looking to move away from traditional physical media for games, instead offering their best titles as cloud-based products. That’s an idea which can’t be supported without some of the biggest players in the game joining in on that act, and it sounds like EA is keen to head to the cloud as well with whatever console hardware is on the way.

A new report suggests that Microsoft's focus on streaming will come sooner rather than later, with a second console launching in 2020 that will feature less hardware and a solution to latency.

Even with some heavyweight talent behind them, Microsoft is still likely to struggle in one market that has always been a Sony and Nintendo stronghold: Japan. Team green has never truly managed to establish a beachhead in the land of the rising sun, with weekly sales of the Xbox One being utterly dismal in comparison to any other gaming hardware sold there. That might change with the next generation of Xbox consoles.