Octopus Overlords

Today (9/15) was opening day for the large-scale bbeta of Microsoft's cloud-based game streaming service as part of Game Pass Ultimate. The service uses the Game Pass app on your mobile device to play more than 150 different Xbox games via streaming from their xCloud servers. It's pretty much Microsoft's attempt at a service like Google Stadia, but with the advantage of a prebuilt audience of xbox gamers who get the service as an added benefit of the Game Pass Ultimate subscription they may already have.

So how does it work? My Game Pass app updated today and has a new button for 'Cloud' alongside console and PC options. Select that category, and you get a list of available games...a pretty impressive list in fact. The top section of my list is titled "Jump Back In" and shows available games that I've played on Xbox One...Witcher 3, Gears 5, Halo 5, Ori, and several others. I paired my Xbox One controller to my phone via bluetooth and picked Witcher 3 to see what happens...

After a brief loading screen, I got a message saying that it was importing my game data...the service loaded my Witcher 3 save games from the cloud, added the expansions that it knows I purchased, and loaded to the game's main menu. I selected my most recent save, sat through a loading screen just like on my Xbox, and was then playing my Witcher 3 game on my phone, picking up right where I left off a couple months ago. Other than being a small screen on my Galaxy S10, the game looked fantastic, streamed smoothly over my home wifi, and played without a hitch. I played for about 15 hours, getting into combat a couple times without any noticeably lag, and it felt just like playing on my xbox. I have to say, it was a pretty impressive first experience.

I'll have to play around with it some more, but early impressions are very promising. I want to see how it works on a different wifi network that's not as fast as the wifi6 router and 200Mbps xfinity that I'm running at home, and I'd like to get it onto a bigger screen. I tried running it on my tablet (Galaxy Tab S3), but the necessary app update hasn't come through yet. If I can use this to play games away from home with an average wifi connection, it's pretty exciting.

Anyone else given it a try yet?

Nope. I suspect I'm like a lot of people and portability for games doesn't matter as much when you are trying to stay home. I know in countries where mass transit is big it might be more popular but for me I wouldn't ride mass transit right now anyway.

I installed the update yesterday on my PC and saw the mobile option.
Not sure how it would even work playing with a controller on my phone.
Do you prop the phone up? Have it on a tripod?
Seems a bit unwieldy to me.

These are apparently gaining popularity...
Razer Kishi Controller

I don't see myself using this often, especially not on my small phone screen, but a gamepad and tablet could be fun when I'm stuck at work for a 24-hour weekend shift. The big snag is having an adequate internet connection...

Yeah the Razer controller is what I'd get if I were going to use the cloud gaming.

something like this can work too for cheap as long as you have one of the controllers that will connect already PowerA MOGA Mobile Gaming Clip for Xbox Wireless Controllers

Harkonis wrote: ↑Sun Sep 20, 2020 6:44 am something like this can work too for cheap as long as you have one of the controllers that will connect already PowerA MOGA Mobile Gaming Clip for Xbox Wireless Controllers

That looks like a pretty good option.

So this is out now for game pass ultimate members. I'm going to check it out after work. So far I'm seeing quite a few games available to stream.