Xbox cloud gaming comes to Hisense TVs as Microsoft reportedly readies free streaming with ads

Microsoft has made a deal to bring Xbox Cloud Gaming to more smart TV platforms, this time to newer Hisense television sets.

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The Xbox app arrives on new Hisense TV models releasing in 2026, Microsoft has announced. Xbox cloud gaming will be offered via the app on a variety of Hisense and smart TVs that uses the V homeOS platform.

The news is yet another milestone in Microsoft's long-term commitment to bring its Xbox console games off-platform to other platforms, including mobile, PC, and directly to smart TV sets via the cloud. This plan could ultimately see Microsoft offering a free-to-stream version of Xbox cloud gaming supported financially by intermittent ad breaks. Reports indicate that a free ad-supported version of Xbox cloud gaming is currently being tested internally at Microsoft.

"Our vision is to make sure your games, your community, and your achievements are always within reach. Bringing the Xbox app to select Hisense and V homeOS-powered TVs is another step toward making gaming available across a broad range of devices, to meeting you wherever you want to play. We'll share more details on the Xbox Cloud Gaming experience with Hisense TVs in the coming months," Microsoft wrote in the announcement.

According to leaked documents from the FTC v Microsoft trial in 2023, Xbox's other ambitions in the cloud arena include Sebile, a premium cloud-enabled controller that works a lot like the now-defunct Stadia controller, with the peripheral connecting directly to the cloud. We've postulated that Sebile will be key to Hideo Kojima's new OD game.

Other things include a low-cost cloud console--codenamed Project Keystone--that would essentially be a receiver device instead of a fully-fledged dedicated games system.

There have been no official announcements regarding the free-to-stream Xbox cloud version, Sebile, or Project Keystone.