Microsoft Project xCloud (Game Streaming), now offering Fortnite free without GPU membership

I'm excited to try psychonauts 2 running on the series x blades and compare the experience with running it locally on my PC.

Today I received that email from MS thanking me for being a founder member and saying that the service will be launched (beta) here in Brazil in the coming weeks (probably at the TGS). Same for Mexico, Australia and Japan.

It's good that I'll be able to play using the app for windows 10, wired in both internet connection and controller.

 

I hadn't tried the Windows app streaming until last night. I expected it to work like the Android app, with a play/install option on the game screen. Ended up checked the app was updated and then had to search for how to do it it.

The button to view streaming games is below the banner on the Gamepass page. I missed it as I was trying to do it a particular way.

 

Anybody else get this? Tried it out last night on my OneX with Crimson Skies & I was really impressed. In fact, it even had a custom screen startup on power-up. It describes the new feature with some helpful little pop-ups on all the new little interface changes. It's really well integrated into the whole UI, like it designed like that from the beginning. Well done!

Tommy McClain

 

Xcloud will be available in Japan, Australia, Brazil and Mexico starting tomorrow. News from TGS

Xbox Wire on Twitter: "With the expansion of Xbox Cloud Gaming to gamers in Australia, Brazil, Japan and Mexico, over one billion people in 26 countries can now play Xbox Game Pass games from the cloud on their phones, tablets and PCs. Learn more: https://t.co/3PoPLQP1Rc" / Twitter

 

Played 45mins of Avengers before putting the kids to bed. Not sure how much of the game I'll play, but as high production distraction for a short spell it was fine. Really nice xCloud experience though. Wired network/controller, fast loading and no noticeable latancy.

I might have downloaded it to try on the PC at some point. There's no way I'd have cleared 100Gb off the S to just try it. So, er, yay streaming.

 

And this morning I have some deadtime where the kids are up but my wife isn't. They've managed to occupy the xbox and my desktop. Tablet on the kitchen table and an Xbox controller in Bluetooth mode for me then. For a currently undemanding experience like Avengers it's great. Odd hitch and that weird screen tear every so often, but perfectly playable and looks good on a 11 inch screen.

I'm probably a perfect customer for this.

(Although frankly I wish my son would stop using the desktop so I could fit in a bit more Death Stranding and Satisfactory)

 

I now always think of this guy's videos anytime I hear the game Satisfactory mentioned anymore.



It's a pretty amazing game in what it will allow you to do. And what it won't do to stop you from doing things you probably shouldn't be doing.

Regards,
SB

 

haha yeah my boy and I always enjoy watching his videos. The time he has to put into those is just insane.

 

https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/7/22714067/xbox-cloud-gaming-custom-xbox-series-x-hardware-upgrade

 

I had expected that once they rolled it out to browser and consoles that they would up it from 1080p but I was wrong.

I think they need to change gold to include streaming only purchased and F2P games that are obviously validated to be streamable.
GPU includes gold.
Best way to make it a truly viable console replacement.

 

xCloud could be huge IMO.

 

For internal testing they have a new smoothing feature it seems. I have to read up on it more but I believe it may be happening on the destination hardware to improve artifacts that slip through the compression.

 

You could say the same for PSNow. I think the problematic space that streaming currently occupies is, it potentially appeals to people who don't want to buy a console (perhaps for cost reasons) who also happen to have good enough internet where they play - but who also aren't so invested in quality to want native 1440p/4K quality graphics at 60/120fps without lag.

When you think about this, this feels a rather narrow market sliver. I think streaming will be massive in 8-10 year's time.

When Sony bought PSNow they painted all sorts of mental pictures about capabilities like streaming a game in realtime whilst it downloaded in realtime in the background with seamless transition between streaming and locally-installed but actually, this is massively complicated problem to solve. A complete remote-to-local machine transfer state is under 16ms (or whatever the framerate) is whilst not disrupting the actual flow of a running game? WTF were Sony thinking..

 

I’m not quite sure how streaming will ever catch up with playing locally…surely there always has to be a compromise somewhere?

 

I would assume so too and some games will be able to hide the latency but i think for a lot of people they wont notice or care.

 

I have seen some people saying xCloud is running 2 instances with 1 SoC (with series s profiles). I know about the series s profile, but there's any confirmation about 2 instances with 1 SoC? For the GPU it would be easy, but what about the CPU side? I know they can, perhaps, increase the CPU clock because of the datacenter environment, but I don't know if it is the case.

Anyone knows something concrete about it?

 

BTW, I didn't come back after this post:

The service was launched in the beggining of the month and it has been a huge success here in Brazil (so much that, unfortunately, we have some queue problems LOL). Microsoft has everything to be dominant in Brazil. So many people that wasn't even aware of cloud gaming are just mesmerized with what is happening (they can't believe they are running games on their low budget PC or android so well).

I've been playing a lot, and I'm so happy with how well it works here. It's incredible. I can play for many hours without a single issue, I totally forget I'm playing through the cloud.

The only thing that need to improve is the bitrate (as everyone already know), but I always read a lot about the "3 seconds" latency, but for me it really is very low latency. I'm in chapter 9 of Celeste and the experience is amazing. Also played the dragon ball game that entered today, inclusive and played online, and it's so smooth. I can't believe how good it is.

And the list goes on: sea of thieves, dirt 5, wreckfest, psychonauts 2, gears 5, doom eternal, HADES, Jedi Fallen Order, hellblade, banjo kazooie, the medium, battlefield one, nier: automata, scarlet nexus, killer instinct, and many more. All of them were great experiences, with very low latency. No audio or video issues 99.99% of the time.

My ping for the server is about 20ms average. I play wired on my PC using the windows app (lower latency than through a browser) and also play on my android with BT controller and wi-fi 5GHz (very good experience too).

GeForce Now, in the other hand, has been a poor experience (46ms avg). I'll wait to judge this one because the launch was terrible (great company that Nvidia decided to partner with for the south america release...)

From the Preview (with x360 hardware) to the Beta (with series x hardware) if has been an amazing journey. Holy cow! Microsoft, what a really good job you did so far. I'm so excited for Forza 5 and Halo (but, at the same time, I'm worried about the queues... LOL if Microsoft don't manage to add more blades, well... R.I.P.)

Sorry for the long text, just wanted to share my thoughts with you all. I feel Microsoft will have the best cloud service in a near future.

 

xbox one LOL
That's what happens when you don't revise before (or right after) posting

 

Strange as it is, I think Phil Spencer said the first game streaming tests they did were 360 games. I don't remember if he specified 360 hardware, and I don't think it was really over the internet, but streamed across the Microsoft campus or something like that. I might be misremembering it, but I think it was during an appearance on IGN's Xbox podcast.