It's been mentioned in the not-too-distant past how Xbox Cloud Gaming is actually the least popular feature of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, but it's certainly proven a hit over the past 24 hours due to the launch of Starfield.
We've seen numerous people taking to the web to share that they've experienced "wait times" related to the demand for the game, with these seemingly reaching up to 235 minutes in one particular case! This isn't the first ever instance of wait times for Xbox Cloud Gaming, but it's definitely one of the most prominent cases of it so far.
Here's a look at some examples:
As you can see, the majority of people have only been experiencing wait times of around 15 minutes so far, so it's not too bad - but it's clearly the result of some extreme demand for Bethesda's RPG over the past 24 hours. For what it's worth, we've been testing Xbox Cloud Gaming a few times this morning and haven't suffered any wait times whatsoever.
It shouldn't really come as a surprise anyway, as Xbox Cloud Gaming is the only way to play Starfield on an Xbox One console. In fact, it's the only way to enjoy the game whatsoever if you don't already own an Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S or a suitable gaming PC, so that's a lot of people who are potentially playing via the cloud right now!
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Have you noticed any wait times for Starfield since it hit Xbox Game Pass? Tell us down below.
Comments 21
Got this last night when trying to play Football Manager on my phone first time I'd ever seen it.
This has been a feature for a while. I usually see it on Tuesdays right when the quests reset for the week and people are presumably trying to get them done quickly. Typically only a few minutes from what I've experienced, 235 is wild!
I've been getting that well before Starfield. Never 235 minutes though usually less than 5.
I've had wait times of 15 minutes or so before Starfield was released.
Apologies folks, I think the "adds" part of the headline was perhaps a bit misleading. Altered it slightly 👍
Its exactly this that means most users will never trust cloud gaming as their main delivery system.
For MS to pretend the demand wasn't forseeable would be rediculous, they simply dont want to invest enough to ensure cloud gaming is available when you want it, not when they can cope with it.
Considering 'the future is the cloud' they seem be trying hard to show its shortcomings...
The only games I consider playing over the cloud are clicky, lo-fi ones. I couldn't imagine ever wanting to play a game I actually was highly anticipating over broadband. I won't ever. If the day comes where they force us to play over the cloud I'll just play one of the 2000 games or so I have sitting all over the place - and I'll gleefully cheer on the industry's demise.
Welcome to the future with cloud gaming!
Take the estimated queue times with a grain of salt. These estimates can be notoriously inaccurate in circumstances where it's not known how long the resource may be occupied.
Yes always got this message during the evenings in Canada. Always found the wait time estimates misleading as it was always actually longer than estimated… only use it for rewards log in…
@themightyant I can only imagine how much global warming the cloud server rooms are generating… stupid future!
Hahaha looks like tons of people that don’t have an Xbox or a PC that’s up to snuff are all trying to play on the cloud and it’s overwhelmed. No surprise there! Lol
Maybe this will sell more series consoles?
@Cashews I was about to say the same exact thing.
@thecricket Any amount of queue time is unacceptable.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. This happens every single Tuesday like clockwork. Presumably caused by an influx of Rewards points farmers like myself trying to harvest the weekly quests. Microsoft should really try to improve these wait times, they’ve become very predictable, every Tuesday you face up to 30 minutes waiting. I’ve even seen an hour wait time estimate once! It’s only served to reinforce my view that cloud gaming is not the future, it’ll never replace running games on local hardware.
@thecricket I find the cloud queue time estimates to be reliable the majority of the time.
@ZYDIO Not saying it is.
As others have said...this happens on Tuesday with rewards...why I always leave doing them untill later in the week
@AlwaysPlaying Cloud gaming is interesting in terms of the environment. A study was done - with some major caveats as it's almost impossible to factor in all eventualities - that had interesting conclusions. Basically for SOME uses it's actually better for the environment than shipping a physical game. But the longer you spend playing a game (like a long Bethesda RPG) it becomes worse and worse for the environment.
The absolute worst of it is things like Antstream Arcade, retro games on the cloud, and now on Xbox. Games that could basically run on a scientific calculator and are a few megabytes in size being run a server farm in the cloud and using gigabytes of data bandwidth.
Xcloud is one of my favorite features of my gamepass ultimate subscription. I stream games on my Xbox to conserve precious SSD storage space or to try a game before downloading it. I also use the Xcloud feature when I'm away from home, it works extremely well on my Galaxy Tab S6 lite which has a 10.1inch HD+ display. I haven't tried starfield on Xcloud yet as I've been enjoying it on my Series S but I'm sure I'll play the cloud version at some point. I'm honestly extremely grateful for cloud gaming. For instance, Forza horizon 5 is one of my favorite racing games but it's too massive to have installed on my Series S so for the last 6 months I've been playing Forza exclusively via the cloud & it plays extremely well.
Side note, Starfield is my favorite game of 2023 beating out Hogwarts Legacy. I've got 22 hours played and I feel as if I've barely scratched the surface. With Todd Howard stating that mods will come to console early 2024 I plan on playing Starfield for years to come. I can't even imagine how awesome the mods will be with creation kit 2 (imagine a mod that allows NPCS to use generative AI to give you in depth conversations on quests or a mod that streamlines ship building lol possibilities are endless). Happy gaming ✌️
Longest I've ever had was about 2 minutes. And that's rare. Guess I'm playing at off peak times
I was surprised to see this too. When Starfield was released, I didn't realize I needed a new video card so I had to get a new one (RIP, R9 390). But luckily, I could play it on my Xbox One while I waited for a new card.
THEN, I transitioned to PC and luckily with Xbox Play Anywhere, it had my saved game. Sometimes I'll still play on Xbox though, like when watching my youngest as she plays. That's when I'll hit these queue times. Even though it sucks, it's pretty cool that there's even this much flexibility for playing under different circumstances.
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