There have been ongoing updates about Xbox Cloud Gaming recently, with reports and even some evidence suggesting Microsoft is gearing up to allow users to stream their games soon.
Along with this, The Verge's senior editor Tom Warren has now shared some new information, revealing more about Microsoft's upcoming plans for cloud gaming.
As highlighted by Klobrille via social media, some improvements in the pipeline include "direct-to-cloud controllers, more cloud gaming features, and improvements to the visual quality of streams" (and improved bitrates).
Earlier this week, references to "stream your own games" were discovered on select Microsoft and Xbox pages, with the fine print mentioning how users would be able to "stream games beyond Game Pass".
Would you be interested in streaming your own games? What are your thoughts about the possible improvements on the way to Xbox Cloud Gaming? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
[source theverge.com, via x.com]
Comments 26
So the direct to cloud controller is still happening? Interesting, it was meant to launch much earlier this year.
Improved bitrate is the biggest plus here. It's fine on mobile but cloud gaming on a PC has been a chore for me (UK). Could be a game changer
I'll preface this by saying that it could simply be because of my location but Xcloud has basically been useless for me whenever I've tried it. Either by having very poor image quality or when trying to play Halo, I had unplayable levels of input lag.
I did try the now dead Google Stadia and that was a significantly better experience in both regards.
I'm not really the target audience for such a service as I'm unwilling to sacrifice the benefits of having the game installed on the device I'm using but it really has to be a much better experience and actually work, no matter where you are
@carlos82 yeah when I search in forums for ways to improve the experience it's almost unanimously better in the US (could be more data centres?), and lots of people say stadia and geforce now are leagues ahead of xCloud
They could expand their available countries. I pay for GPU, but can't use Cloud. -_-
@themightyant
Some wise words please.
Is it just me or the UK my internet 200mb/sec.
I tried series x game cloud streaming.
The visual picture was terrible like a bit of a blurred mess.
Or is the current standard.
TV 65” 4K etc etc.
@OldGamer999 200mb should be fast enough. Although faster would yield better results. Cloud streams at 1080p so should look just as good as streaming Netflix or likewise as 1080p. How are you streaming? From the Xbox itself? How is it connected to the internet?
Cloud works floorlessly for me here in New Zealand. Even over mobile data.
*Repost from early discussion
I read comments all the time about people not having joy in cloud gaming or remote play due to lag/input lag etc.
Most problems are easily fixed. You just need to know where to look.
I have a basic list of improvements.
1. Use 5ghz wifi. Turn off 2.4ghz or at least run separate signals and ignore the 2.4ghz signal on your device. Devices can divert back to 2.4ghz because of the stronger signal killing your ping.
2. Wired if possible. Use wired connections. Definitely on your Xbox if you want to use remote play. But even playing on the cloud. If you can wire it. Do it.
3. Use wifi 6. Use wireless networks that are capable of wifi 6. Wifi 6 has much less latency than wifi 5. So get a new router/enable wifi 6 if you have it. Also on your device settings enable signal type/strength. Then a little 6 or 5 will show up next to your wifi signal. If you can always choose 6.
4. Upnp/or port forward. Enable upnp on your router or port forward your Xbox live port. Doesn't hurt to do both.
5. Use default xbox live port. Use 3074 on the Xbox you wish to remote play from. If you have two xboxes one will need a different port. But the one you want to remote to most, put on 3074. Some business wifi/public Hotspots block all ports over 50000 which most of the fallback Xbox live ports are.
6. Enable QoS. Use QoS on your router and if you can, prioritise gaming. Also enable QoS under network settings on your Xbox.
7. Mimo. Get a smart router with mimo or equivalent. Maybe something with an app that you can prioritize clients. Then prioritize your Xbox and any devices connecting to it.
8. Get closer to the router. If using wifi try and get closer to the router. Or if not an option use another wired device as a wireless Hotspot. My work computer works great for this.
9. Check to wifi chip in your device. Older devices have slower wifi chips. An s24 is going to have less latency than a s22. Not to mention way faster than an a03.
10. Upgrade your controller. Using an old Bluetooth controller may well be slowing you down. Bluetooth 4.0 is light-years faster than Bluetooth 2.0. So your device or the controller may be running on an older Bluetooth standard.
11. Wired again. Get something like a razor kishi/backbone. Plugs directly into the USB c port on your phone. Destroying input lag.
12. Fibre. Get a Fibre internet connection. If not available, get the best wired internet connection you can get. Forget adsl, vdsl, satellite or even 3g/4g mobile data broadband packages. They are all going to suck.
13. Use gaming mode. A lot of phones or tablets have a dedicated gaming mode. These quite often limit background applications sucking up bandwidth or processor power. Some even enable a performance mode making the device run faster.
Well that pretty much the basics. If you do some or all that, you will have no problems.
@OldGamer999 As @Astig said 200Mb/s should be fast enough if it works well. However cloud streaming is less about speed in terms of Mb/s but more important is what the speed of the ping is. (The ping is how long it takes for the signal to get from your Xbox to the server and back, you are looking for less than 50ms ideally) You can have a 200Mb/s connection but if the ping is slow it ruins everything. Or it could be a Wifi issue, slow router or something else.
Are you on Ethernet or Wifi? I'd advise trying ethernet if you can just to test if it's a WiFi issue and eliminate that as a cause.
EDIT: Great tips @Astig
@carlos82 I am in the states with 400MBps and Xcloud is also useless for me. Latency is terrible and honestly 1080p on my 65” LG looks real bad.
@Astig I've tried pretty much everything, by default I split my 5ghz and 2.4ghz signals and Xcloud has been poor whether I'm trying it on console, PC, wired/wireless or on mobile and as I said, Stadia worked great on the exact same setup.
So in my case I'm fairly certain that my location is the biggest issue
To add to this, I'd suggest that if such a service requires this level of troubleshooting, then its not fit for purpose. As your average person is simply not going to do this, they'll just try it once and see it doesn't work and move on
@themightyant
Streaming from the series x wired to the router.
No wifi.
It’s probably something my end.
Just wanted to know if that was the quality.
But it sounds like I should be getting better quality.
I seem to stream 4K movies etc really well through my sky q box and that’s Wi-Fi.
About time with the visuals. Even 1080p via third party apps is terrible on a bigger screen now.
Perfect for handhelds but the visual quality needs to be improved massively if this is the route Xbox are focused on in the long term.
@DonkeyFantasy there's absolutely nothing wrong with my Internet, this is an Xcloud issue
I had family over last night and we watched my nephew stream multiple games. No one could tell it was not running natively. It worked perfectly. It was thru a fire stick on a 65" TV. No hiccups, pixelation, or frame dips. I am impressed with how well cloud has improved since I first tried it. Wait times are way better too. It was taking 30 seconds or less to boot each game.
Xcloud is currently limited to 12mbps per second and codec h264. It was my understanding that this was actually a limitation in the hardware chips on the server blades. So if they've found a way around that to boost it then that's fantastic news.
@OldGamer999 This is the problem with cloud streaming games, there are too many places along the route where there could be a problem and it's hard to diagnose where the specific issue is. It can be very frustrating, or it can also just work if you are lucky.
But video streaming and game streaming are very different. Just because you can stream 4K video well, doesn't mean the same for gaming. In video streaming your device will buffer X seconds ahead so that any blip in the connection will be smoothed over, it only really needs raw speed e.g. Mb/s. Game steaming on the other hand can't do that, you are playing the game in real time. Hence firstly it relies on a fast ping, else it will feel laggy, but it also relies on a consistent reliable connection as any dips will be noticeable, which is why I said Mb/s isn't all that important.
The trouble is debugging what is the cause is a massive headache, it could be one of dozen different things, including something you can't realistically change like your physical location.
Cloud gaming is just waaaaaaay too early for mainstream. In its current form screams not ready for prime time.
In another 5-10 years, maybe. This is from perspective of USA player. Other countries quite sure mileage may vary.
@themightyant
Sounds like there could be lots of issues then.
Well we certainly decades away from full on 4K, hdr, VRR, Dolby Vision and Dolby atmos 60fps
Game streaming then.
Give me an amazing box under the tv any day.
@OldGamer999 I mostly agree. However as game streaming becomes more prevalent the infrastructure, routers and everything else will be more built around it and people should have less issues.
But I also don't think it's either/or. It doesn't have to be a replacement for a box, it can be additive. E.g. I use Xcloud very often on my Steam Deck in bed or when i'm away and it's mostly great. It doesn't need to be 4K + HDR + VRR + Dolby Vision & Atmos, it simply needs to be 60fps at 1080p with good image quality and minimal lag. I don't play twitch games like Halo or Forza on it, but everything else is fine.
More importantly you and I are looking at game streaming through the lens of people who have a Series X console. If all I had was a mobile or Switch then xCloud might look pretty great by comparison.
I wish they’d focus more on the native Xbox experience, for those of us to whom ‘cloud’ means less than nothing.
@themightyant
It’s has its place for sure.
I just don’t want it to replace the home console
Unless it totally produces exactly the same quality as the home consoles is today and in the future and it’s visually best.
You know how these companies work,, try to sell you something that is less than you have now for more 🤣
@OldGamer999 Yes I do, that's why i'm vocally pro console and physical media, don't trust them at all.
@carlos82 @OldGamer999 @Coletrain Yeah, didn't they say during the ABK trials that in the UK they only had the capacity for like 10,000 people or something like that? Maybe it was 100,000 but it was still extremely low. I don't think it's set up to work that well over there. And it's definitely behind GFNow.
Seriously does anyone remember Bethesda's Orion project? It promised massively improved latency for cloud gaming even over poor internet/data. That had been announced before Xbox's aquistion and when the aquistion was announced it was hands down what made me most excited. I thought like months after the Orion tech would be incorporated and Cloud Gaming would massively improve overnight. Jokes on me I guess. Now it's looking like Orion never really panned out.
@OldGamer999 It won't. A lot of fear mongering is ridiculous because they Ignore the actual reality of consoles. Sales peaked with the PS2 in 2006. And it was only 155m. Every console (except MAYBE the Nintendo Switch (we'll see)) has sold a chunk less than it in a longer life cycle. For example the PS4 only sold 117m and the PS5 is on track to do the same. For entertainment devices that cost between $300 and $500 (on average, treating the launch PS3 and PS5 Pro as outliers), that's really bad. Even the total console gaming market isn't that big. Floating between 400m and 500m. And the total console market doesn't really matter much when they all have locked down ecosystems and cross save and play is few and far between.
What I'm trying to say is people don't want to acknowledge that console gaming has become a niche market. The point of consoles have always been driven on the promise of making gaming accesible to the common person and reaching general audiences. But they haven't and I can speculate a lot of reasons why, but all that matters is they haven't. In total the console gaming market is about as big as the PC gaming market and PC has a much more open ecosystem even with different operating systems. Xbox Cloud Gaming (and no cloud gaming) is really targeting the core console user base. They aren't switching to a non native gaming experience. What Xbox Cloud Gaming is hoping for is to target and bring in audiences that consoles have failed to reach. Their goal has always been to reach over a billion gamers and right now the best selling console is reaching sub 150m (because monthly active users are lower than raw console sales). Cloud Gaming targets those who are willing to compromise their experience for convenience and ease of access. Heck it's targeting the mobile crowd who went nuts over Genshin impact.
The other fear in Xbox abandoning consoles doesn't make a ton of sense. Like Windows has OEMs but the Surface Line is still here to stay. Xbox's goal is expansion not contraction. The console user base is small but according to reports continues to grow more than ever and they still make a crap ton of money off of them due to the proprietary store. Not to mention Cloud Gaming hardware runs off of Xbox console architecture. I envision them wanting a seamless ecosystem between platforms (console, cloud, and PC), but don't see them ever getting rid of an entry point and foresaking an entire market.
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