An incredible new ad from Xbox makes it very clear that you no longer need an actual console to access the huge library of games. In fact, all you need is an Amazon Fire Stick and you’re good to go.
The ad begins as a parody of the opening moments of Screamone of the best movies of all time. A young woman home alone answers a phone call and a menacing voice on the other end of the line says she is someone who “wants to play Xbox.” The woman replies that you need the console to play Xbox games. “You don’t need an Xbox to play Xbox,” the voice eerily claims. Soon the menacing voice calls back and asks, “What’s your favorite video game?” The woman asks, completely freaking out, “What game is that?”
Ohoho, this is not a game. It is Hundreds of games! The woman walks into the living room and sees that her TV, equipped with an Amazon Fire Stick, can now play Xbox games. It turns out that she locked the doors to make sure no one interrupts her unsolicited game night, now that she has Game Pass and most of its catalog at her fingertips thanks to the cloud.
Starting today, Xbox is taking the next step in its Play Anywhere Initiativewhere Microsoft continues to de-emphasize the need for a physical console to play its games. This began in earnest at the start of the current console generation, when Xbox Game Pass debuted on PC as well, allowing people with powerful computers to access a sizable portion of the Xbox library. Soon, the term “Xbox exclusive” effectively implied PC as well, and Microsoft hasn’t left it at that.
Thanks to cloud and remote gaming efforts, Xbox games have been playable on mobile devices as well as certain brands of Samsung smart TVs since last year, and with this latest ad, the Xbox app is now making its way to Amazon Fire Sticks, further eliminating the need for a console.
However, this initiative also comes with some disadvantages. As great as the cloud is these daysit’s still hardly a true replacement for a console with games installed on it, as cloud gaming remains vulnerable to the ups and downs of internet connection in terms of stability. For people who expect high-quality graphics, cloud gaming (and Microsoft’s XCloud technology in particular) isn’t ideal, as it compresses the image to make games run better. Then there’s the matter of the catalog: the Xbox app is something only gamers can afford the most of the titles offered through Game Pass, not the entire catalog of its own games. Not only does this mean that the library is quite limited, but it also means that you must be subscribed to Xbox Game Pass to use the app.
That being said, Xbox’s push to bring its games to as many platforms as possible is clearly on the rise, and it is likely that it will continue to expand in the foreseeable future. Despite this push and the opinion of critics and fans, Microsoft is not Out of the console room completely and has even confirmed that Working on a next-generation consoleHowever, the future of the Xbox certainly does not seem to be limited to selling a box that will sit in your entertainment center, and given the Reason that it lost to its competitors the last few generations, it is probably wise to think outside the box.
