I’m guessing there are other people like me who want to be able to play newer games without having to upgrade there PC every few years or buy a new console. Unfortunately, as long as some internet providers like Wave cable cap how much data I can use this won’t be an option for me.
I assume this was sarcasm, but it’s also not what Microsoft are doing at all. That’s why they are making new consoles, and introducing cloud in the form of what is essentially an extension of that console. xCloud isn’t even an actual product yet.
But if or when cloud does hit big, they will also be positioned to capitalize on it.
In traditional console markets? Sure, I don’t think the untapped market is “massive”. In developing markets, or markets where you just culturally don’t have living rooms with boxes under a gigantic TV set? I can easily see there being an untapped market.
But perhaps more importantly, I’m sure Microsoft are doing the actual research on trends in gaming, and where different kinds of gaming are seeing the most growth I don’t think Spencer is just walking up to the roulette table and praying that the ball lands on his foundational assumption being correct, that non-“traditional” gamers exist in large numbers around the world.
And this premise is anything but hidden. Spencer talks about what he believes to be the 2.7 billion gamers around the world all the time, versus the ~200 million that buy home consoles, and how his goal is to try and reach those people. It’s basically one of his PR mantras at this point.
Spencer seems much more on the ball than the previous folks running the show but Microsoft did push the Xbox One as a tv/media first games second device at the start too.
I’ve liked pretty much all of what Spencer has done but believing theres 2.7 billion or so more gamers out there that cloud streaming will bring in is…a big stretch.
I think you’d be surprised how many people ONLY game on their phone. Tapping into that market with Xbox quality games could be huge, and is probably the reason that XCloud has only been rolling out it’s beta for phones so far.
I don’t think those people represent unmet demand for console style games.
I know it’s a generalization, but console games mostly need controls you can’t comfortably swap out for touch controls, and aren’t suited for playing in 2–10 minute blocks of time while muted.
There’s going to be some overlap, but all those phone gamers are a largely new market, not an expansion of the existing market. It’s Wii Sports in nursing homes all over again.
Consider also that Apple has tried several times already to bring “console quality” games to the iPhone because at various points in the last generation, their hardware was actually good enough to get close to the production values of console games. It didn’t take off when they put those games on your phones, it’s not going to take off when they stream those games to your phones.
I can’t figure out how I feel about all this stuff. It’s neat, and I see some possibilities -
- Higher quality (not necessarily full console quality) titles available for mobile and browser, because you’re just streaming. Not console complexity; simple touch screen\mouse controls and game styles, similar to what you’d see on mobile now, but at a higher fidelity because of the hardware
- If it takes off, could be useful for app devs who want to reach a wider market. They only have to ensure compatibility\updates with a single hardware\software platform which has the ability to reach every single platform that connects to the internet.
So I don’t think it’s really about getting complex titles everywhere, I think it’s about getting whatever titles everywhere and letting users sort it out.
Uh the people playing farmville type games on their phones aren’t interested in Halo regardless of how they could get it. That’s pure fantasy for anybody who thinks that.
There’s definitely room for it. I’m one of those guys who, even if I’m playing a game on my phone, I still want a full gaming experience. I’ve got some board game adaptations, but otherwise, I’m mostly playing Stardew Valley, Baldur’s Gate 2, or Tropico, for example (just to name the 3 that are in my current rotation.) So yeah, give me more console-quality games on my phone!
The only reason I don’t play badass “console quality” games on my phone is because it kills the battery. Solve that problem, and I’m in.
Cloud gaming takes only as much battery as streaming video.
That’s a good point, my son is always snatching my phone to play Roblox and it only takes a few minutes of that to just wipe out my power.
Yes, I understand that. It’s less battery draining than native 3D gaming on your phone, but it’s still pretty bad.
Modern devices can stream video for a surprisingly long time as it’s all hardware-accelerated and doesn’t use the CPU. My phone can do like 4 hours, and the iPad probably like 10+.
It doesn’t have to be touch controls. There’s an entire range of Switch-like controllers for mobile phones coming out over the next couple of years, and both major mobile OSes support controllers via USB and BT.
I also think a lot of the talk around the potential market for portable console-quality games, looks at it from a distinctly western perspective. Meanwhile, South Koreans are apparently using the xCloud beta on Android nearly twice as much as any other region of the world. Spencer has also mentioned countries like India as places they think xCloud can help them break into.
Like I said - I don’t think Spencer is blindly placing his trust in nothing but a baseless assumption that there’s billions of gamers out there that the console manufacturers are failing to reach.
Exactly.
South Koreans don’t buy consoles, originally because they hate the Japanese, and don’t buy gaming PCs because they have a culture of communal gaming in PC bangs. What they do have on them at all times are mobile phones connected to the fastest mobile network in the world. So they do seem like a natural fit for this technology.
South Korea is pretty unique in those two factors, though.
But we are very much in a world where elementary school students have iPhones, so I mean…I may not want to buy my kid the next Xbox (though I probably will, personally,) but she’s already got a phone.
Using a controller to game on a phone or tablet is a niche of a niche, a novelty that will never take off. Mobile games are still going to be designed around the majority that won’t use it so they’ll be based around touch controls, and you’ve tossed away the portability and convenience of mobile gaming as soon as you’ve started adding peripherals so streaming the controller-designed console style games is just as much of a non-starter.
Microsoft will be doing a series of Mixer streams that will replace the talks they were going to do at GDC. Not a full reveal show of Series X, but some more bits about it and stuff like xCloud.
