Sony’s PlayStation Now service has been letting games stream some titles over the internet for years. Now it looks like Microsoft wants in on the action.
Speaking at the company’s E3 press event today, Microsoft’s Phil Spencer said that Microsoft’s cloud team is developing “a game streaming service to unlock console-quality gaming on any device.”
By any device, he means Xbox consoles, computers, and smartphones. Given Microsoft’s recent focus in the smartphone space that probably means you can expect support for Android and iOS. It’s unclear if the company will bother supporting Windows 10 Mobile.
There’s no word on when the game streaming service will launch, whether it will be a Netflix-for-games style subscription service, or if there will be a pay-per-title pricing model.
We’ve seen companies adopt both approaches in recent years. While Sony’s PlayStation Now seems like the obvious comparison, since both Microsoft and Sony make popular game consoles, other game streaming services include GameFly, NVIDIA’s GeForce Now, and Blade’s Shadow, not to mention services that let you stream PC games to other devices over a home network, like Steam’s in-home streaming (with the recently-launched Steam Link apps).
Still, any upcoming streaming service from the makers of the Xbox line of consoles is certainly worth watching out for.
so i will be able to play aaa titles on my shit computer via xbox is that what he means
I’ve heard this one before. Some unsolved problems:
– datacaps on home and mobile internet
– latency introduced by home routers and infrastructure
– online-only gameplay (duh) and games are not bought, they are rented
– not all devices have ideal controls and/or screens for this. It’s not because of the lack of processing power that people don’t play competitive multiplayer FPS on mobile, it’s because you can’t control a game on a 5″ touchscreen
+1
Gameplay will have have to allow for more latency. I guess people can get use to that.
1. No fan of datacaps, but if they were that big of an issue, then Netflix and Amazon wouldn’t be investing in and rolling out 4k content already. And with Net Neutrality ending (today), there’s always the possibility of MS negotiating deals to exempt their service from those caps (not a good thing, but that’s the world we live in.) Also, many people don’t have datacaps on their service anyway.
2. Latency is a issue, sure, but only for certain genres, like FPS. There are hundreds of other popular games where latency isn’t important.
3. I’ve got dozens of boxed games stacked in a closet upstairs somewhere, none of which I’ve played in years, even decades, and will never play again. I own dozens of games on Steam and HumbleBundle, and probably won’t even play many of them. The same argument was used against streaming vs owning CDs/DVDs, but people have voted with their wallets and streaming services won out. Ownership might be important to some people, but that’s a minority view these days, when the alternative is good enough and affordable.
4. Downloads of the mobile versions of *the* most popular multiplayer shoot-em-up games in the world — Fortnite and Pubg — have topped 100 million in no time at all, and are topping the charts all around the world. I don’t get it, but clearly, playing twitchy games on mobile devices is not that much of an issue to many.
None of this means that MS streaming games service will be a success, but one of these days, one of them will be.
Best thing they can do, is let stream any title you own on Xbox or windows 10. Then have Xbox game pass be able to stream games in addition to downloading.
Create some sort of earning mechanism where third party devs will want to put up their games on game pass, after they are 12-18 months old, and leave them up there permanently, and have devs get paid an initial joining fee, then get paid based on the number of hours their games played by a certain subscriber.
Well, streaming isn’t free, so they’re not going to let you stream any title you already own. It will probably be a monthly fee, like Netflix, for which you get to stream a bunch of games.
As for the developers, they’ll probably get paid a few cents per hour, and the games will be added and removed just like movies and TV shows do on streaming services. Some will become permanent, others will be up for a month or two, depending on the developers’ wishes.