I am a video game lover. When I can, I always try to dedicate some time to continue the story that I left halfway Or, if I don’t know how much time I can dedicate to gaming, I get titles that allow for spontaneous gaming. I’m progressing in the campaign or just doing some shopping, I really like that.
However, I recognize that I haven’t turned on my Xbox Series X yet in 2023. The reason? I don’t need TV because I can play Xbox anywhere through my mobile.
Before, a bit of history
Although it is not new, because it has accompanied us for many years, I admit that the cloud forever changed the way I play. When all this started and services like OnLive or Gaikai were launched, I looked at them with suspicion because I consumed the specialized media, the opinions did not convince me completely and… it was clear that something was wrong .
They were ahead of their time because the technology was not ready. They laid the foundation stone (and part of it became what PlayStation Now is today) in streaming gaming, but the industry wasn’t ready, the companies weren’t ready, and the national infrastructure was leaving to be desired.
Simply, no one was prepared. However, there came a time when things started to change and Google was largely “to blame”. Before Stadia became what it was, the service was known as Project Stream (they weren’t racking their brains thinking, of course).
It promised 1080p at 60 frames per second with state-of-the-art graphics and without the need for hardware to run the game
Months later the official name was released: Google Stadia, and at the end of 2019 it landed on our borders. I’m a user of the first, of those in the Founder’s pack, so I fully bet on technology. They convinced me, and while I didn’t like the business model (having to buy each game with a small catalog and no flat-rate subscription fee), the quality was spectacular.
Streaming gameplay is pretty cool, but those huge black bands knock me out of the experience. Sometimes.
In fact, I think it’s the best streaming experience I’ve had on a platform of this style and it’s very much in line with what my colleague José wrote after three months of playing on the system. However, a few months after Stadia launched, Microsoft has changed the rules of the game.
They announced Project xCloud, a Game Pass extension that would allow gamers to play a catalog of games in constant rotation for a monthly subscription. In fact, it’s not even a subscription as such, since it’s included in Game Pass Ultimate, so if you’re an Xbox user, you have Game Pass both on console and on your mobile thanks to the cloud gaming. I would also play Stadia, but you know how it ended.
For many games, I don’t even need the controller
There are games that are very well controlled with digital buttons.
We have arrived at the present and I can say that I’ve been playing xCloud or Microsoft’s streaming game since day one. I was so excited that I even started using it via VPN back then.
It wasn’t the best mode, of course, but I wanted to try it, and I’ve been an active user of the platform since the preview in our territory. And while playing on a physical system is always superior, the cloud gives me things the console doesn’t.
My Xbox is in the living room, but I spend most of the day in the office
Other games, however, call for a controller.
I can open a tab on my Mac or grab the mobile and start playing. Also, I use it a lot outside the house when I have to wait for the doctor or when there is a trip (‘Vampire Survivors’ made me happy last Christmas).
I use it so much that I even play ‘Age of Empires II Definitive Edition’ on my mobile (although the experience isn’t the best). AND There are games that work very well (the majority), but others that have a little more trouble. Titles with in-camera acceleration like ‘Deathloop’ or ‘Ghostwire Tokyo’ are a little more complicated, but you can get used to it.
Example gameplay with Microsoft Cloud Computing
And the best thing is that a lot of games that I love for short moments, like ‘AoE 2’, ‘Vampire Survivors’ or ‘Minecraft Dungeons’, they don’t need you to connect a controller. The buttons appear on screen as if they were native Android games and… let’s play.
It also happens with other more demanding ones, even with shooters, but here I admit that I didn’t understand and that I suck with the digital sticks. For those times, I hook up a controller via Bluetooth or the Razer Kishi (which essentially turns the phone into a console) and play around with the traditional controls.
Cloud gaming-focused consoles are starting to come out, and I don’t think this is the new PSP Go
Going to market when the technology or the market itself is not ready has a very high price. I’ve talked about this before with early game streaming services, but the same thing happened with the PSP Go.
Sony, for various reasons, one of which was to stop PSP piracy, released the PSP Go in November 2009. It was a spectacular console, but without a physical format. At the time, it was a bullet in the foot. Now we see the digital market as something normal and, in fact, there are games that sell more digitally, but in 2009 we were not ready.
Just as the digital and physical markets have coexisted for a few years, today We’re in the era where cloud gaming is taking shape and systems like Logitech G Cloud are starting to roll out.
You also have the option to play with Steam Link.
It’s a console with Android and outdated hardware, but it has a great projection thanks to its approach designed to allow us to play in the cloud with services like Game Pass, Steam Link or GeForce Now.
The format seems great to me thanks to a 16:9 screen which does not have black stripes on the sides and, although I do not know if I would buy it since I already have a mobile to play, I like to see that manufacturers can bet on the creation of consoles focused on this game in the cloud.
It doesn’t matter how powerful they are because, in the end, the servers pretty much do all the work. And if, game streaming isn’t perfect because you need a good connection and there are some games that don’t get along very well with this technology, but for some reason it made my Xbox Series X smell collecting dust playing on my portable xbox.
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