As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
Xbox Cloud Gaming adapts to how you play—Touchscreen, controller, or mouse. Here’s how they’re helping devs support it all.
Microsoft is tackling Xbox Cloud Gaming latency with real testing and tech upgrades—here’s what’s working, and why it matters.
Speaking as someone who uses xcloud, i havent really noticed much lag, if at all. I have used the service on a wide variety of devices. A VCR XBO, a One X, the logitech GCloud, steamdeck and my work PC. in all cases it just works and works really well. I was not interested at first in the idea of streaming a game, but then i really started using it as a way to gauge interest if a game is worth my time of downloading/installing and I just cant help but jump into new titles when they drop. I used to do the same with new releases on netflix so i can see why they make that similar proclimation.
With Remote Play, the lag can be almost complete nonexistent too. My TV and Receiver glitched up really bad a few weeks ago and my Xbox wouldn't output through 4K 120hz for a few weird hours of power cycling these stupid devices, so I got to test this out while my Xbox just refused to output video through hdmi.
With a Backbone on my phone, and a controller connected to the console (hardwired into the modem through an Ethernet switch; my phone is connected to a Router that the modem routes to - so there is that extra network layer), I could not notice any difference. Avowed was set to the Balanced mode, maybe Performance would've exposed a lag with the extra frames but the response on my phone screen looked near exact from stick push to game response.
Cloud Gaming, playing something like South of Midnight feels responsive enough to me, and games like Pentiment you really really can't tell, and if you could, that's a game where lag would be inconsequential to the experience
I live in a city that has an Xbox Cloud server, and my local network uses Wi-Fi 6. I've used the service for quite a while. I can't really say I don't feel the latency. Some titles are completely unplayable for me, like Forza Horizon 5. But there are also many games where I barely notice it, such as A Crab's Treasure and Halo MCC.
Honestly, it's great that they're working on making it better. But the way it works right now is already pretty usable, and casual gamers, who I assume are the target audience, probably won't even notice the latency. The issue then becomes more of a commercial or marketing one, because casual gamers are either on mobile or console, and they probably don't even know Xbox Cloud exists, how much it costs, or how it works.
It also doesn't help that some of the most popular casual games aren't available on it at launch. Sports games from EA, for example, are always a couple of months late.
For World Book Day, here are 10 video games that feel like reading a good book—emotional, thoughtful, and unforgettable stories.
I would have included the Uncharted games as well. Good list though.
Haha it is not lost on me that two of the games in the top four were already novels before they were games
Shouldn't be allowed in any field.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
Monopolies shouldn't be allowed regardless. Not just for gaming.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
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