I guess I’m not understanding the question. There’s no streaming solution currently available on the console, so it’s not streaming from the cloud. Not yet anyway, but hopefully that’s coming too.
In my mind, which is probably completely missing something:
Streaming from Xbox to your iPad. The game is already in the cloud. Your xbox is not streaming everything, it’s already there. Otherwise data transfers would be insane. So all the games are already in the cloud ready to stream no matter what the service. The Xbox is just confirming you do own it and can stream it.
xCloud: You just remove the Xbox that says you own the game.
I am guessing that is not the way it works?
In the first instance, the game is actually running on the Xbox. You’re just streaming that to another device. I can currently do that on my PC, play a game there if my wife wants to watch TV. If you flipped the TV over to Xbox while I’m doing this, you’d see the game I’m playing onscreen, on both that and the PC.
In the second instance, no Xbox required. You pick a game that’s available in the cloud, start playing, just like that. At least that’s the idea, I haven’t tried it. Since I’m on iOS and all.
It’s doesn’t help that MS decided to conflat streaming from the console in your house with streaming from their cloud servers when they first started talking about xCloud.
The first is just their version of Remote Play which have existed on PlayStation and PC for a while. For a long time MS limited using your own console to stream games to your own network. They eventually started allowing that over the internet as well, and only just got an app released for this on iOS. The advantage is this works with any game that runs on your console. Anything you have installed that doesn’t need Kinect. The down side is your home internet may suck, and if you’re traveling there’s no way to take advantage of a datacenter that may be closer, since your home is the server.
This is different from xCloud proper, which runs the games directly in the cloud on MS owned servers. This is equivalent to PlayStation Now, Stadia or Luna. The advantages are potentially better latency thanks to not being tied to your home internet speeds. But you are also limit to just the games approved for streaming in the GamePass library, and Apple prohibits these kinds of services from releasing apps.
Apple places absurd requirements on these kinds of services, which effectively prevents these kind of apps.
FTFY
Yeah, Apple views streaming from console (or other hardware the consumer owns) very differently from streaming from the cloud, at least for games.
Project xCloud allows you to play Game Pass games on your refrigerator!
Woohoo! Finally! With the clip attachment and the controller, the phone is too far away from my face to actually see anything.
Also, how the hell is Minecraft Dungeons not on this list.
Already had it.
I tried it a few times on my phone, it keeps saying press A to continue on the main screen, and I couldn’t find any way to activate touch controls.
I just tried it. I can confirm it works in Dead Cells and it works in Minecraft Dungeons too, but the touch interface disappears when you don’t use it for a second, whereas it’s on all the time in Dead Cells.
Do you have a controller connected that could be inadvertently sending input? Touch controls only disappear when you have an controller connected and push something on it.
I played some more of this on my chromebook. I got around the Chromebook’s garbage bluetooth by plugging in my Xbox controller directly, and that eliminated all the issues.
It really is impressive how well games play. I’m going to try forza horizon tomorrow.
Let’s be clear - Apple are far, far worse than Microsoft were 20 years ago.
Except nowhere near as dominant.
Exactly right. Their behavior is far worse, but they don’t dominate either mobile or desktop platforms. That said, both mobile and desktop are duopolies. Shouldn’t they be regulated too?
Absolutely. I am scared regulation will hurt what makes the the platform good, but on the other hand they are way overstepping their bounds. I just don’t think the comparison to MS is completely accurate.
I tried touch controls with New Super Lucky Tales on my phone yesterday. I was surprised at how poorly it worked. I guess platformers need a more sensitive timing than I was expecting, even forgiving platformers like this one.
I had the “left thumbstick” moving to the right, and I would press “A” to jump, and then it would jump just a bit too late, always. So I always fell into the pit. Pressing the button early enough is really, really hard to do.
Players Drive Record Engagement as Xbox Expands Cloud Gaming to More Devices in 2021 - Xbox Wire
There’s a lot of interesting tidbits in that article, like the fact that 40% of new players are on the Xbox Series S plus a bunch of new titles announced for Xbox and Game Pass, but the main point of the article is the addition of xCloud functionality to PC and iOS devices in spring of 2021.