When the Xbox One was first announced, Microsoft also provided details of a system which will change the way we all play games; The Cloud. Alas, Gamers are yet to see it at it's full potential.
Yes, the cloud has been around for quite some time now, and we have already seen it implemented in a number of ways. One, in particular has been with us since part-way through the Xbox 360's life-cycle, allowing us to store saves in 'the cloud' and continue where we left off on another Xbox 360 console half way across the globe, providing you had access to the internet of course. After all, that is how you access it.
2025 cloud gaming trends are looking good, but it’s not all smooth yet. We break down what’s working, what’s not, and what comes next.
Alex Hutchinson talks about Google Stadia, how Xbox compares, and what cloud gaming needs to move forward.
Cloud gaming still has too many flaws. Fast stable internet, extra costs/subscription services, not ideal for mobile data and why play over cloud via wifi when you have a console/pc that has no input delay and other issues, why buy a game on a cloud service (will always need online even if it's a single player game) when you can actually own it on console/pc...at the same price. Cloud gaming should only ever stay as an option to gaming and playing your games that you already own. Never as the only option.
I disagree, in the sense that the flaws are and have been these same known quantities for some time. You know you need fast and stable internet for the best experience. You know it isn't just free beyond Remote Play. Ownership - you know what ecosystem you're in.
Cloud Gaming is awesome when it's there as the most viable option at the time and works. For me, it was like this morning on my laptop playing Pentiment waiting for my car service to finish. For others it's to quick demo a new game before thinking of hard drive space. Maybe Mac users with gigabit internet want to play GeForce Now and buy a game off Steam only to play it that way.
As long as latency exists, cloud gaming will never thrive no matter how much they advertise that there's low latency or no latency that always ends up being a load of crap
I quite enjoy cloud streaming now. I find it the quickest way to testing if a game is worth committing download time or even $ to buy it. And using dedicated devices like the portal and gcloud makes it all the better.
But like Goodguy says... it's an option, and not the only one. If people understand that, they may start to appreciate this convenience.
I think Xbox is doing Cloud Streaming right, even if I think its only because they're doing hardware wrong.
By enabling xCloud on The Xbox One and Series S they enable players to buy the cheaper console but play games in better resolutions through xCould.
Take the recent Oblivion release for instance. If you play it locally on a Series S it's rendered at 630P and upscaled using FSR to 1260P with a 30FPS cap.
But if you play it on xCloud on the Series S, it's at 1080P native 60 FPS.
So you can get better performance using xCloud then playing local (on the Series S and Xbox One).
It shouldn’t have required a subscription service. Like do the Steam model and just take the % on software sales or have a sub tier where you pay monthly or annually and get perks.
I’m not opposed to the idea of being able to stream games in the highest quality, but Stadia was so poorly handled it turned into a massive sh*t show.
"It shouldn’t have required a subscription service."
It didn't
"Like do the Steam model and just take the % on software sales or have a sub tier where you pay monthly or annually and get perks."
That's literally what it was. Stadia pro gave 2 free games a month (similar to PS+), 4K visuals, and 5.1 Surround Sound. But if you didn't want to pay you could simply buy the games and play them in 1080P. The core service was free.
But google massively screwed up the marketing which led to people thinking it needed a sub to use.
Google Stadia failed largely in part because of the massive campaign Microsoft launch against it. It didn't have the massive support of PlayStation, Nintendo, or even Apple to withstand the negativity campaign Microsoft launch against it.
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3 years and were still waiting for the "Power of the Cloud" to make games run better.
5 years from now or 3 years (crossing fingers). We gamers might finally see the power of the ☁. In 2020 however we gamers will finally see an Xbox app/PS app on a smart tv set 😄. Ending the need of outdated, outperformed, unnecessary console hardware. They told me that PS Now was not coming to PC, they were wrong.