Microsoft Announces xCloud Support For Game Pass Games In 2020

Microsoft Xbox chief Phil Specter confirmed today the rumors that Game Pass would get streaming support in the form of xCloud later this year. This occurs after the company yesterday revealed subscriber numbers for the first time, surprising everyone with the news that the service had surpassed 10 million users.

Xbox Game Pass, often mislabeled “Netflix for Games,” is a subscription service that offers access to a library of more than 100 Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One games. Unlike Netflix, you have to download the games what do you want to play. This means that you have to plan ahead if you want to try a new game. And, if you play as many titles as I do, you’ll end up doing actual inventory management to meet your gaming needs.

Project xCloud support would solve this problem for Game Pass subscribers. The not yet officially named service will allow subscribers to stream games directly to PC, Xbox, Android, and iOS devices. According to reports, the service will work similarly to the current Xbox beta feature that allows users to stream games from their home console directly to their other devices.

According to a Specter blog post:

We are also inspired to bring you our fastest and most powerful console that will set a new bar for performance, feel, speed and compatibility when it launches this holiday; as well as a library of games from our 15 Xbox Game Studios and thousands of development partners around the world. Later this year, our cloud gaming streaming technology, Project xCloud, is coming to Game Pass, so you and your friends can stream and play the games you love together on your devices.

Sony and Google currently have similar offerings. With Google’s Stadia, you can stream games directly to your phone or tablet, and Sony’s Playstation Now allows you to stream a large catalog of PS2, PS3, and PS4 games directly to your Playstation 4 or PC. But both offers are a little shaky.

Stadia has not seen a strong rollout in terms of stability and its insignificant library will satisfy no one but the first users who have vowed to be a part of the service’s first efforts.

Playstation Now is a little more appetizing. It has a large library and offers the option to download a part of its games to PS4 consoles. Where it’s faulty is in a terrible UI, servers that are often slow to unusable (even with my 500mb fiber connection), and a lack of top-tier titles.

Microsoft has taken a different approach to Game Pass, and one that’s been pretty good so far. The selection of games for subscription is simply phenomenal. In the first months of the service, it looked like it would mimic Sony’s modus operandi by unearthing a bunch of bargain titles from yesteryear and interspersing them with a couple of “new” games that were top sellers 2-3 years ago.

But Game Pass was quickly differentiating itself from the competition when Microsoft announced a couple of years ago at E3 that it was snatching the top 3^rd Party developer companies like the properties in a Monopoly game, and it will launch all games published by its developers from “Xbox Game Studios” in Game Pass at launch.

This started a continuous series of AAA titles with everything from Forza Horizon 4 to Gears 5 and The outer worlds landing in the hands of the subscribers at the same time as they launched at retail. If you’re an Xbox One owner who plays console exclusives, Game Pass is by far the best gaming deal. And that was before streaming support was officially announced.

The first reviews for the current European test of Microsoft’s xCloud streaming service have been very positive. I have tried streaming the console at home and it was fantastic. Download the app, connect your controller to your console, then connect it to your phone or tablet, and your device will become a remote viewing screen for your console. It worked perfectly in my time with the preview.

If Microsoft can make the experience of streaming games from their servers to our devices as simple and hassle-free as streaming downloaded games over my WiFi, Sony will have a huge advantage in the upcoming Christmas console war.

Your move Sony.

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