Xbox head Phil Spencer doesn't think the cloud will beat out traditional home consoles just yet.

In an interview with Gamespot, Spencer spoke about why he believes home consoles will be around for a long time, with streaming years away from being the primary way games are played.

"I think this is years away from being a mainstream way people play. And I mean years, like years and years,” he said.

Netflix serves as Spencer's example. It has taken 20 years for the streaming service to develop enough where major shows and movies are streamed through it. However, he does acknowledge that game streaming will take less than two decades to get right.

"It takes time for these services to evolve,” he said. “We are building for the long-term, but that's why choice is so critical."

Mobile streaming

One of the ways Microsoft wants to utilise streaming tech is through Project xCloud, a streaming service centred on mobile that is designed for players to take their Xbox experience on the go. Public trials for the feature start in October this year.

“We are not working on a streaming-only console right now,” said Spencer. “We are looking at the phone in your pocket as the destination for you to stream, and the console that we have allows you to play the games locally.

"I think that the cloud inevitability as part of gaming is absolutely true. But we have more compute devices around us than we've ever had, whether it's your phone, a Surface Hub, or an Xbox.

"The world where computer devices are gone and it's all coming from the cloud just isn't the world that we live in today."