Late last month, Microsoft announced that Xbox Cloud Gaming was about to mount a new offensive - this time taking over select Amazon Fire TV devices. Now, less than two weeks later, the Xbox app is officially available on the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K and Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max - bringing cloud gaming to the Amazon masses.
All you'll need to access Xbox gaming on Amazon Fire TV is one of the above Fire Stick devices alongside a Bluetooth-enabled wireless controller and an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership.
Of course, with these sticks being relatively low-power devices, all of your Xbox gaming will be over the cloud here, so a good internet connection is also a must. Still, it's a pretty cost-effective way to get into Xbox these days, and we can't complain at the Game Pass service being available to even more players!
Do bear in mind that on announcing this move last month, Microsoft said that its Amazon app would be available in "over 25 countries", so some regions may miss out on launch access. Anyway, if you're interested in trying this and have all the gear you need, the app should be available on the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K and Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max right now.
Giving Xbox Cloud Gaming a try here? Tell us your plans down below!
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Comments 15
without being cynical here, will anybody in the UK who doesn't follow this site or the xbox twitter ever know about this? They won't advertise it
@Dimey Same. I'm in the US and no marketing that I've seen either.
Interesting that Amazon have gone for this when they have not long launched Amazon Luna in the UK. This literally kills Luna dead in the water!
I’m not complaining as more people on Xbox is great news. @kezelpaso is there any updates on playing owned games at all?
waiting in que, daily time limits, regular service price increases, awful quality and lag. the game streaming future is bright.
@rustyduck It is a mixed bag, for sure. I do have pretty fast internet and benefit from it, but I know a lot don't. I hope it comes to more app stores/tvs/streaming devices soon.
I resubbed just for this since I'm not at home and don't have Xbox with me, then I found out it only works on the 2023 fire stick 4k. They don't mention that outright, they make it sound like it works on any fire stick 4k. The supported devices list is 3 hard to find links deep.
Very annoyed.
Rubbish cloud stream gaming yet again.
Sorry team, we must keep the console hardware under our TVs alive, especially Xbox hardware as well as they could be the first to leave the hardware market.
I gave it a try on a Fire 4K stick and was mostly impressed. It wouldn't be my first choice, and I couldn't play twitch games like Halo or Forza on it, but for anything slower it was fine and a good backup.
But of course as ever with game streaming your mileage may vary, it's too dependant on individual setups.
@FarmDog08 It's not really about 'fast' internet, even a 20 Meg connection can stream games at a similar level to faster connections. It's more about the latency of your network infrastructure, distance to server and other factors. Having a CONSISTENT connection with as low a ping as possible is much more important that raw speed for game streaming. Though a little speed overhead might help if you hit a rough patch.
@themightyant I'm, admittedly, not a techie, so that's good info. I don't play a lot of twitch games as I'm a solo/rpg kinda guy. Streaming will probably be fine for me then. I do have a Series X, but I am intrigued by the app so I can stream in another room if the wife and kid are on the big screen. Better yet, I want a dedicated handheld that plays my library natively!
@FarmDog08 I've played entire games on Xcloud, at times you forget entirely you are streaming. Steam Deck is a pretty good handheld for it, but i'd probably wait to see if Xbox has a unit coming out, they seem to be teasing it.
The biggest problem right now is it's only Game Pass games not purchased library. They have said this is something they will change, at which point it becomes far more useful as you can continue any game, almost anywhere.
They have fully updated the Xbox website to be cloud gaming compatible as well and now this. They really want this to be the standard in the future but I think people won't accept it for what it is.
Its just brand new models though which is kind of crappy!
@OldGamer999 Don't worry Sarah Bond has already confirmed that they currently working on a new Xbox console saying it’s going to be the biggest technological leap ever. You’ll probably already know this from the recent Xbox Showcase so we don’t need to worry about Xbox hardware for a long time yet.
@MaccaMUFC
Yes I did see that in the showcase, great showcase overall, the best one.
Being honest I still don’t trust them bringing a next generation full home console until I see it in a year or two. But I so hope they do.
This is the future of the xbox brand.
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