Project xCloud Beta Tested

A big part of Stadia's problem is its positioning as a replacement for local gaming hardware, be it console or PC. Again, this is where Microsoft is being smart, with XCloud acting as a supplement for the Xbox and hopefully PC.

Google should have partnered with Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo to offer streaming.

 

If MS has plans to offer Game Pass coupled with XCloud, that could be a very interesting deal.

 

I'm sure it will be. Game Pass Ultimate will probably receive it with Microsoft bumping up the monthly fee to anywhere between $19.99 and $24.99. They would then create a new tier below it that is essentially GP Ultimate in its present state. If they're smart, MS will add XCloud at no extra cost for current subscribers until their plans expire. It would also benefit them to include 6 or 12 months of XCloud with the purchase of any new Xbox console when the service goes live.

 

Finally a good technical review of xCloud Beta. Project xCloud Beta does not offer a PC version so this is more of a forward looking tech demo than Stadia, as the xCloud Beta emulates an Xbox One S in the datacenter and not a Gaming PC like Stadia.

Project xCloud Beta Tested: Can Streaming Deliver A Handheld Xbox One Experience?
Dec 3, 2019
Digital Foundry
Rich shares his experiences with the Project xCloud beta and goes the extra mile in getting the best possible xCloud vs Xbox One S visual comparisons, latency metrics - and in the process solves the whole phone/clip situation...

 

Wait, why did our messages got moved here?

 

I wonder if my Xbox for PC Beta will turn into Xcloud for PC when the time comes for Xcloud to work on as a PC Service; will Xcloud Beta turn into a separate service from the existing Xbox for PC Beta?

Destiny 2 and Master Chief Collection are free as part of Xbox's cloud streaming beta
Bungie's greatest hits
by Brett Makedonski, 2020-01-21
https://www.destructoid.com/destiny...t-of-xbox-s-cloud-streaming-beta-578532.phtml

"Project xCloud's free games selection keeps getting more robust. Originally a mere four games (pshh!), it grew to 53 games last November. Now, Xbox has added another nine titles, a few of which are very high-profile.

Today, these games joined Project xCloud:

• Black Desert Online
• Civilization VI
• Destiny 2
• Forza Motorsport 7
• Halo: The Master Chief Collection
• Sparklite
• Superhot
• The Surge
• Tracks: The Train Set Game

As a refresher, all of these are free to play for anyone who has been accepted into Xbox's Project xCloud game streaming beta. All it takes is an Android phone or tablet to be eligible to register. Microsoft has already announced that Project xCloud is coming to PC sometime this year, meaning that cloud streaming won't be confined solely to mobile devices.

Anyone without an aversion to game streaming would do well to sign up for Project xCloud. Even if playing on mobile devices with an Xbox controller isn't of interest to you, the upcoming PC functionality will unlock all these games for free. At the rate Project xCloud is growing, there may be upward of 100 free games by the time it hits beta on PC."

Xbox's BIGGEST Weapon? | Can XCloud Win Xbox The Next Generation? | New Games Added | Xbox News
Jan 22, 2020
Zalker 87
Project XCloud has been in beta for what seems like a little while now. Yet a lot of people have seemed to forget that it's one of Microsoft's biggest asset when it comes to the gaming market. Xbox seem's poised to unleash would could be their biggest weapon upon the gaming industry. Sony's PlayStation 5 is right around the corner, and Google Stadia has already launched. The competition in gaming is getting bigger and bigger. Could Project XCloud and the Xbox Series X really give an advantage to Xbox in the next generation?

 

Microsoft is smart to reuse Xbox One S hardware and software with small modifications for their streaming servers. Saves huge amount of money for both them and game developers. And when next Xbox will be out, they can upgrade their servers using hardware from next Xbox to offer easy option for Ray tracing, which again will save them money and time and also allow developers who will have game that supports Ray tracing in next gen Xbox to quickly provide it on XCloud. It is also smart that they are reusing existing Xbox controllers which is already something that all Xbox One S and later gens of Xbox users have and many PC users have (who prefer playing games using controllers). All they need to do is offer a good price, which can be a part of existing game pass.

It will obviously never reach the visual quality of direct console gaming since the video stream will always have issues in terms of low bitrate which will cause blurriness and visual artifacts for people with poor broadband speed or extra network delays (your input must travel to streaming server even if you are playing single player game) but for very few people who might not care about these it is still overall a better option than anything Google will offer ;-)

 

Bitrate doesn't seem to be a problem for those with the required bandwidth, and even mobile there is enough bandwidth, also latency doesn't seem to be much of a bother either.

YMMV - we could easily find problems with either service under similar conditions. Pixel peeping on both services is needed to see differences under good internet and device conditions.

The interesting question will be how will either service be monetized down the road, and will Microsoft abandon selling Consoles due to success with remote gaming, as it could under the right distribution of servers and high speed connections make that possible.

Google doesn't have any gaming hardware line to abandon. Google is famous for making services free or extremely low cost and monetizing through other means. Right now Stadia is expensive to keep the load on servers low, but soon the free services will open up, and Google could easily undercut any other streaming service to gain market share.

So the question is, should we support any services like these, if we want to remain using PC's and Consoles with game software paid for once to remain in our control?

It's clear the direction is to control the IP and paywall the content such that they are the only avenue for gaming, and the only services for playing them.

That's a much better discussion than simply dumping on either service, perhaps we should be dumping on both.