Yesterday, Google announced its entry into the marketplace as a cloud gaming service provider in the form of Stadia. In doing so, Google instantly became one of Microsoft's biggest rivals for the future of gaming, and Xbox gaming chief Phil Spencer has been quick to respond.

As Thurrott reports, Spencer sent out an internal email after watching the Google Stadia announcement. In it, he states that Stadia is "validation of the path we embarked on two years ago." What he's referring to is Microsoft's Project xCloud, which will open up a similar game streaming service that works across many platforms. The bonus for Microsoft being that it has access to a large back catalog of Xbox titles to stream.

Spencer was impressed by Google's combination of YouTube, Google Assistant, and a Wi-Fi controller, but said there were "no big surprises" and pointed to "Content, Community and Cloud" as the big things to push, suggesting Microsoft is ahead of the game on that front. With that in mind, Spencer also let on that while Google "went big today," Microsoft is going to be doing the same at E3 this year, suggesting we're going to be hearing a lot about Project xCloud in June.

We've already seen Forza Horizon 4 being played on an Android smartphone and controlled by an Xbox One controller connected via Bluetooth. It worked very well in a controlled environment, but we won't know how robust Project xCloud is until consumers get their hands on it. We also don't know when xCloud launches, with only testing being confirmed for this year. Microsoft could launch after Google, but we'll likely learn more definite dates at E3.