Xcloud First Impressions

 By: Patrick Morris

Game streaming has become a unicorn that major players in the industry have been chasing for a few years now and every time a new service launches I sign up for the free trial and after a few days of experimenting walk away with the same conclusion: that the technology just isn't ready yet. I've played games on PlayStation Now, Google Stadia, and Amazon Luna and every single time I buy into the hype and before I know it I'm Leo McGarry and these tech giants are the joint chief's telling me they have a missile defense system that will actually work this time! Well last week I got an invite into the Xcloud beta program and after spending several hours with it I am happy to say that while Microsoft definitely hasn’t caught that elusive unicorn yet they are closer than anyone ever has been by a country mile. Xcloud is a service that if it were a stand alone would be lost in the shuffle of an already crowded space full of undesirables, but instead, it's inclusion with Gamepass ultimate changes it from an additional expense to an added value that elevates it from just another face in the crowd to what will almost certainly be the premier platform for game streaming.

There are several major players in the game streaming space and I've tried almost all of them, PSnow, Stadia, Luna, the only one that really springs to mind that I haven't tried is GeForce now. And of the services that I have tested they all seem to have similar strengths but also suffer from the same problems. Convincing developer's to put their games on a brand new streaming platform hasn’t seemed to be an issue for any of them. Sony has a huge back catalog of PlayStation 3 games available to stream, and both Google and Amazon have smaller but more modern libraries the latter of which even has a price tier that includes access to Ubisoft's subscription service Ubisoft+. But where they all seem to have the same issues is the quality of service they provide combined with the way in which those services are monetized. Both PSnow and Luna rely on a month or annual subscription while Stadia relies on individual purchases with the option for a monthly subscription to improve the graphical fidelity of the games being played. This revenue model has been proven in the movie and tv industry but the differene there is in the experience. When I turn on a movie on HBO I sit down and experience the movie, sure it's not as fantastic as seeing the movie in theaters but it's perfectly fine and therefore they have earned my money. But every time I sit down to stream a game on one of these major services the disparity of the experiences between streaming and playing on local hardware is so large that I feel these services cant function as the primary gaming platform for even the most casual players much less totally replace an Xbox, PlayStation, or high end gaming PC. 

 

After playing Xcloud for a week I cant help but notice how Microsoft's streaming service outdoes the competition in just about every way but one of the most notable is in performance. For once game's being streamed to a device are actually playable. The single biggest issues with all of these services and what makes them essentially unplayable save but a few titles is latency. With regard to latency I'm happy to say that while it is noticeable it's not game breaking on nearly as many titles on Xcloud as it is on other services. It's difficulty to describe but the latency on Xcloud can be felt but rarely seen. On other services I can see my thumb physically press a button and see the delay in that action being taken in game. Whereas with Xcloud I can feel myself press a button or move an analog stick and while there is still a minor delay between feeling my action and seeing that action occur on screen that delay is reduced to the point that I cant see it and if someone were watching over my should I don’t think they would be able to see it either. So essentially latency exists on Xcloud but it can only be felt a bit and not seen which makes for a significantly better experience. 

 

Resolution and frame rates are, in my opinion, somewhat of a moot point when it comes to streaming. The way I see it is that if you cant push a 720P image at 30 frames per second to my phone or browser with negligible latency then advertising visual performance at 4K/60 with graphics settings on high or ultra is essentially selling snake oil. Games on Xcloud look good but not great. According to Android Authority.com the hardware driving Xcloud servers is based off the Xbox one S. At a glance this may seem to be limiting when comparing to the likes of Luna, Stadia, and GeForce now but to my admittedly limited understanding of how this technology works it appears to be working in Microsoft's favor. 

 

While Luna, Stadia, and GeForce now are all utilizing PC hardware and streaming the PC versions of their respective games to the end user's device undoubtedly results in the potential for higher fidelity gaming, in the real world use case the result is actually the opposite. Like I mentioned before most of these services are struggling to push a 720p image at 30fps to my device, so if the stream is where the bottle neck exists then the potential of the hardware means nothing. And to add even further to the issues with utilizing PC hardware it is a well known fact that PC games are designed to be largely scalable to accommodate for the nearly infinite variety of hardware configurations that could be in any given gaming PC. Xbox games, on the other hand, are designed for a small number of possible hardware configurations, the one S being the lowest configuration on that spec sheet. So while PC hardware results in a higher ceiling that is functionally restricted by the bottle neck of internet speeds it also allows the hardware to scale graphical settings down making for a lower floor and less visually impressive picture. So amazingly, in this hyper specific use case that is so fringe that most of these services aren't even out of beta testing, the Xbox one S appears to be somewhat of a sweet spot for performance. 

 

Everyone knows that even the best hardware in the world is nothing without good software, and the same can be said for the best streaming services in the world. And while Amazon, Google, and Nvidia are undoubtedly doing a great job wheeling and dealing getting games on their services Microsoft has an absolute advantage in this respect. Gamepass is an already existing service for which Microsoft is already striking deals with developers to bring their games to, the addition of Xcloud is presumably a simply amendment to or clause in an already existing or new contract. So while Amazon, Google, and Nvidia are incurring relatively large costs signing developers and those contracts are only for games being streamed on their respective services Microsoft is simply adding a relatively minor cost to contracts for existing services while also being able to offer the allure of a developers game not only being on their streaming service but also being added to the white hot Gamepass service on Xbox and PC. 

 

So the technology is better than their competitors, the potential for games and the library is comparable if not better than their competitors, but what about the actual user experience? Initially I was disappointed when Apple put a stop to game streaming via native apps on iOS, and honestly I still am disappointed. It seems like an unnecessary power move to try to micro manage the developers on their platform. Then when Phil Spencer announced that the Xbox team would be developing a web app I was a bit apprehensive of it becoming a fairly clunky and slow experience that required me to open my browser and go to a specific site then log in every time I wanted to play which would be enough of a hassle that it would have prevented me from ever actually using the service. But as it is, the experience of playing Xcloud on iOS is totally acceptable. After receiving the invitation and logging in to xbox.com/play the user is then prompted to save the web shortcut to their home screen and access the web app from there. From that moment on the web app was nearly indistinguishable from an actual native app. There is no hint of the Safari UI anywhere in sight and while it would definitely be nice to have this functionality baked into the official Xbox app or even the Gamepass app like it is on Android the web app is perfectly usable and doesn’t pose any major barriers between me and playing my games.

 

Everything about Xcloud is best in class, but unfortunately that class needs to be graded on a pretty sharp curve. So while Xcloud is better than Luna, Stadia, and PSnow, it's still very evident that they have a long way to go before it's worth paying for. But there in lies the rub, Xcloud is entirely added value. Microsoft is creating a new tier called Gamepass Ultimate Plus or whatever and adding $5/month to the cost, they are just giving users more functionality and inherently value for the same price they are already paying. Which is completely in line with everything the Xbox division has been doing in recent years. They don’t care where you play or on what platform you play just as long as you are somehow using Xbox services. Microsoft is building a gaming ecosystem so unless you are playing on a PlayStation or switch they will have a good chance at getting a small piece of the pie.

 

Overall my experience with Xcloud has been great and I look forward to the platform continuing to grow and improve. There are definitely some minor bugs here and there, my volume bar and home screen bar get stuck at the top and bottom of my screen while playing, the Xcloud UI never goes away, and my phone gets uncomfortably hot and drains battery faster than what is acceptable. But these are all issues that will undoubtedly be addressed in future updates. The idea of paying for a game streaming service and getting nothing but that streaming service leaves a bad taste in my mouth with respect to game streaming in general, but the additional functionality being added to something I already pay for does the total opposite for streaming. Microsoft has taken something with a fairly negative outlook and turned it into a very positive experience and for the first time using a game streaming service regularly seems more like a realistic probability than it does an idealistic sci-fi utopian possibility.