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Tom Warren: Xbox Cloud Gaming is part of MS "Xbox Everywhere" initiative, devices like a TV puck, apps for TV and every game you own play on cloud
- Thread starter Theorry
- Start date
If the xPuck is basically an Xbox in terms of the OS (has support for all the same features like achievements, video streaming services like Netflix, parties, etc., as the Xbox OS) and it just cloud streams any games you play, I think it could be pretty legit.
Now I just wonder how those unit sales for Xbox Series consoles are going to look like 😅
Now I just wonder how those unit sales for Xbox Series consoles are going to look like 😅
This is what I am expecting/hoping for. I actually think it'll be arm-based and the BC team moved to get the Xbox OS running on ARM instead of x86 for it. That's what I imagined in my head anyway
Would be all over this, setup on the bedroom TV for home use and take it with us when we travel.
Being able to play every game I own is my biggest wish for xcloud. It's nice having it for GP stuff, but being able to pull out my phone or laptop and pick up playing any game I own is such a cool idea (aside from the issue that xcloud has never ran smoothly for me).
I think the preference for most people is to be able to play using existing boxes/sticks like Roku, Apple TV, Fire Stick, etc. Wouldn't this, essentially lock you into their storefront?
It depends. I think you should consider the xPuck to just be a cheaper Xbox Series console. I suspect it'll have all the same features (minus stuff like Quick Resume) as an Xbox console whereas the android TV apps will probably just be streaming games.
Not to mention, I suspect the xPuck will support Xbox's controller protocol which should give it better connection and latency. The Xbox controller's bluetooth is pretty bad.
This would be huge if true.
Wonder if that includes back compat games and original Xbox games.
XCloud Streaming is just so bad. Like the only thing I can see it being useful for is turn-based games - ANYTHING that requires response time or precision is a lost cause.
Like I lost the tutorial race in Forza Horizon 5 when I tried to test it out on XCloud. It's never going to catch on as long as shitty ISP monopolies (Comcast, etc) are the norm in the territories where it's available.
Like I lost the tutorial race in Forza Horizon 5 when I tried to test it out on XCloud. It's never going to catch on as long as shitty ISP monopolies (Comcast, etc) are the norm in the territories where it's available.
That was the plan but last we heard they still have licensing issues with older games because streaming was never planned when they were made. We know they were adding streaming rights into newer contracts but I am sure some of the bigger companies don't want to sign those over for free.
This would be absolutely monster if it happened. Assuming it's every game in your library, that's a crazy ambitious offering that would be hard to compete with outside of Sony or Valve really stepping up in the game streaming space.
Puck instead of stick increases the likelihood of there being an Ethernet port on this thing, IMO.
I've been playing FH5 solely via xCloud on my laptop (with an ethernet cable though). Has been a pretty good experience so far.
There has to be one! Though IDK if it'll be on the actual unit rather the power cable similar to the Chromecast.
Yeah, Xcloud Game Pass streaming is the future, and they know it and have a chance of getting into millions of homes with reasonable subs.
Works well for me, you might be too far from a data center plus some connection issues.
For me I would regularly spin out due to the connection not reading my inputs properly, or the lag would desync me by six or seven seconds during a race and when my connection caught up, I'd be slammed into a wall or a tree. Even using the rewind function wasn't that helpful.
I live 30 miles outside of Boston. There's no excuse for the connection being that bad. It's not like I live in the middle of the woods in North Dakota.
It works so great for me that I was capable of getting MVP on a Halo 5 match.
To give a different experience, I played pretty much the entirety of last months playlist seasonal content via streaming, including the races you had to win against unbeatable AI to clear. Felt like I was playing natively with a tiny bit of extra display lag.
Cloud streaming is always going to have hundreds of variables and work better from some than others. If your home network is good for it (and it's easy enough to test of it is - especially with actual free use without a sub like the Fortnite stuff that launched today) then xCloud is totally viable for normal gameplay. If it's not (I've tried to play in plenty of hotels etc where it's essentially non-functional) then it's going to be a bad time.
They are still lots that can affect it. Wired vs wifi, your ISP, etc.
On 5G it has been hit and miss for me. But on ethernet my experience has been great the past months. Obviously the experience is gonna differ for everyone. I live in a small village in The Netherlands.
I've compared it to playing the game natively online, and the experience in cloud streaming is literally night and day. Every single aspect of the experience was fundamentally broken when playing it in streaming, whereas I had zero lag issues playing online with a native copy.
When I tried to stream Halo ODST out of the Master Chief Collection, I couldn't even get through the opening dropship cutscene without the video becoming so artifacted I couldn't even make out faces anymore. By the time I got to gameplay I was dealing with 3 seconds of consistent input lag and any time the screen needed to update a lot (for example, rotating the camera left or right) the visuals would become a garbled, unreadable mess for five to ten seconds before my connection "caught up".
The experience really varies, I've found. On my data, I get crazy artifacting, but at home WiFi (5g) I was able to play 3 hours of sea of thieves without issue.
Works really damn well on my console too.
This really sounds like an issue with your network connection.
Were you ever able to try stadia?
Another reason why this Fortnite news is great. Gives people an option to try out streaming before buying anything or subscribing to something.
they made recent updates to the service within the past month or two. see if it had any affect for you.
Nah. Playstation Now was similar but less awful when I was a beta tester for the service, though I only tested it with things like retro-styled platformers and not AAA games. And I was on a completely different ISP in a completely different city then. I have zero interest in Stadia.
If it's $99 it better have all the streaming apps out the gate, and in 4k.
Or be bundled with some number of months of GPU
Oh, I feel like this is just a fraction of it. If they really wanted, they could do partnerships with ISPs to ensure homes have good connections for streaming, hotels to have it available in hotel rooms, and airports to prioritize xCloud traffic. I wonder if we'll see partnerships like that...
It's a game streaming problem in general. If you can't get good results on a gaming streaming service in a massive urban center like Chicago OR in the suburbs outside of Boston due to predatory ISPs giving poor service while being the only option for some consumers in those areas, maybe, just maybe, it's too early to be pushing game streaming too hard.
Like Microsoft (and Sony, and Google) should be paying attention to how toxic and horrible the ISP situation is for the majority of consumers in America before trying to go whole-hog on game streaming. Comcast isn't going to make it easy on us.