Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud): A portrait of Microsoft’s service

Similar to Google Stadia, Xbox Cloud Gaming is a video game streaming service. This means that by sub­scrib­ing to xCloud, you as a user have the ability to stream and play video games over the Internet. You can read more about how exactly this works and how mem­ber­ship to Microsoft’s gaming service works here.

xCloud belongs to the guild of so-called cloud gaming services - a form of cloud computing. From a technical point of view, this means that the games are no longer run on the user’s own computer, but instead in the cloud on the operator’s server resources. To use the service, in addition to a mem­ber­ship with the cloud gaming provider, you need a stable Internet con­nec­tion and a supported device for playing. Your inputs are then auto­mat­ic­ally sent to the servers in the data centre and syn­chron­ised.

If you want a more detailed answer to the question ‘How does cloud gaming work?’, we recommend the linked article.

A big advantage of xCloud is the cloud gaming aspect itself: Games no longer need to be installed and kept up to date in­di­vidu­ally. Also, you no longer need the most advanced and expensive hardware to run demanding titles because the games run entirely over the Internet and requires a minimal com­pu­ta­tion­al capacity. The majority of the computing load is on the operators’ external servers, which are also main­tained on a regular basis.

The second big advantage of Xbox Cloud Gaming is the Game Pass. This includes an enormous game library, the contents of which are im­me­di­ately available in the cloud. With one account, you have instant access to hundreds of hours of exciting gameplay and full-length, block­buster-quality en­ter­tain­ment. All of this comes via instant access through your Internet con­nec­tion and can also be used on the go. Use on multiple devices is part of the xCloud concept, as the save states of the in­di­vidu­al titles are also stored in the cloud and can thus be accessed at any time via PC or mobile devices.

If you live in a region where fast Internet is not available, game streaming is not really a viable option. A permanent down­stream of mul­ti­me­dia content with sim­ul­tan­eous upload of con­trol­ler inputs is only possible with a cor­res­pond­ingly powerful Internet con­nec­tion. If this is not available, Xbox Cloud Gaming prac­tic­ally can’t be used. Adding to this is the fact that the offer can only be used as part of Game Pass Ultimate and is not available as a separate service.

Although the list of com­pat­ible end devices is re­l­at­ively long with computers, tablets, and smart­phones, Xbox Cloud Gaming cannot be used on TVs. Those who like to enjoy cine­mat­ic­ally staged block­buster games on the big screen are left on the sidelines due to the lack of com­pat­ib­il­ity for TV sets.

The game library linked to Game Pass is large and titles are added monthly - however, many popular titles from Xbox and Xbox 360 are not playable via cloud gaming. It’s a similar story with private servers for mul­ti­play­er titles: Since the computing op­er­a­tions take place in the cloud, it is also not possible to create your own servers. So anyone who wants to set up their own Minecraft server, for example, will have to look for a cor­res­pond­ing al­tern­at­ive.