Topic: Game Pass on a Samsung TV...

An interesting look at the cloud experience and demonstrated with Sony's DS5 controller too. I've noticed them use a DS5 a couple of times when demoing their Cloud gaming service which also demonstrates their 'willingness' to open up their gaming to 'everyone' regardless of controller preference and to make it as accessible to as many people on devices they already have.

Soon, I expect more brands and more TV's to have the Game Pass App on it and for those not willing/ready/able to upgrade to the 'new' TV's with the App built in as standard (like Samsungs), they'll offer a Dongle with apps like netflix, amazon prime, disney+, spotify etc for a 'small' fee and/or bundle with a controller.

That's completely platform agnostic releasing by Microsoft - at least in the traditional sense!!

@BAMozzy I will admit this sure looks exciting!

It'll be interesting to see how this develops in the coming years.

And and smart move, tbh, to partner with Samsung, whose TV's sells very well.

@HarmanSmith It certainly opens up a LOT more accessibility options for Microsoft to grow their Xbox user base. Partnering with Samsung to start does make the 'most' sense as they are the 'dominant' TV brand - as well as a dominant Android brand of Smart Phone.

The 'convenience' and of course the cost is going to attract more gamers to Xbox. Being able to play directly on your TV without hardware, being able to play those games wherever you want without losing progress or having to buy multiple versions, its only going to become more popular.

Just like people can watch their favourite TV shows, listen to their favourite music etc on all their devices wherever they are, they can now do the same with gaming. Play on your Smart TV when at home, play on mobile/tablet when out, play on your PC at the 'office' (during lunch breaks LOL) - choice is yours - all for as little as $10 a month. Far easier to 'justify' than trying to find $500+ and $60+ for every game you want to play...

Of course the cloud isn't quite on the same 'level' as the Console experience - you are sacrificing 'image' quality and technically more input lag, but not enough to be noticeable and you can have more lag on Console too if you don't use the low latency game modes or use more TV processing - but that's what you are paying for with Consoles. If Consoles aren't 'good' enough because they are limited to 30/60fps and whatever your 'limited' console GPU can do, then you can spend more on high end PC's to get the 'best' input lag, the best resolution/visual settings, the highest frame rates (in excess of 120fps) so Consoles are not the 'best' for the most hardcore/dedicated gamer and have more input lag than PC's in general too and Cloud offers a very 'console' like feel to playing games. I very quickly 'forget' that I am not playing 'locally' when streaming games on my Series X - the only time I feel I 'need' to download is because the 'visuals' will benefit on my 4k TV.

But the point is, for just $10 a month, you get 1080/60 game-play, which is better than most XB1S gamers experience with more consistent and 'better' frame rates which in turn means lower input lag than the 'local' experience. Relative to the Cost, you can't beat that - you have to spend at least $300 on a Series S to get better visuals and native play, $500and you increase the Visual presentation a bit more - but that's what the 'investment' in hardware brings but for $10 a month, there is hardware available that cannot beat the Cloud experience. Doom Eternal on Switch is 30fps, visually scaled right back and much lower resolution than 1080p, but you can play the 'series X' visual version, supersampled down to 1080p and running at 60fps so 'better' than 'native' hardware experience can offer.

@SplooshDmg what was the first game you played on it? And how was it?

@SplooshDmg that's s great example. If you have no problems with doom, then other games should be good. We've come a long way.