4 ms·

I have used it on my Series X and it's just not as good as playing it locally. I've got it hooked up to a 4K120Hz TV that supports VRR and ALLM, and the exeprie

I have used it on my Series X and it's just not as good as playing it locally. I've got it hooked up to a 4K120Hz TV that supports VRR and ALLM, and the exeprience over the cloud will never be as good. It's very convenient that I don't have to download 50GB to play a game, but if it's a game I want to actually play, the 50GB is worth it. I also have a PS5 with the PS+ Premium package, and their cloud offering is even worse.

rjh29 3y ago
Yeah but people who want 4k120hz etc and play console are an extreme minority.
- dm_me_dogs 3y ago
  That doesn't mean that playing on the cloud is good though, does it? It's still a subpar experience in terms of reponsiveness and image quality, even on a 60Hz display. It's not my internet connection either, as I have my Series X hooked up with an ethernet cable, and my line is a 500/500 fiber line from Bell, with at most 5ms latency. I should be the ideal customer for cloud gaming, and it's still not good.
  - PretzelPirate 3y ago
    I am in the Midwest and have the opposite experience. Most of the time I can't tell the difference between playing on the cloud vs locally on my Series X. Playing battle toads, forza, spelunky 2, etc... I'll sometimes get visual artifacting. I even played Wo Ling and it felt as good as playing locally. When I stream, it's in my Galaxy Fold 4 so resolution doesn't matter to me on that size screen.
  - plif 3y ago
    My experience is that it's much better than the alternative of games running natively on your phone. I would say better than the switch too in most cases for me (more battery life, shorter load times) though may depend on the game. I also noticed a significant improvement running it on WiFi after I upgraded to a mesh network. I've only tried over cloud a few times, can appreciate connection requirements may very high, but even being able to load it up wirelessly in different parts of the house or backyard is a big plus for me.
  - alonsonic 3y ago
    Cloud gaming is fantastic. I use it daily as I don't have or want to buy a PC or console. I pay $10 a month to play Destiny's latest expansion and I can unsub when I'm done. 4 months of gaming worth $40 instead of the console/PC price. It's also extremely convenient to try new games with a very low barrier of entry. Fantastic service
- JohnTHaller 3y ago
  Especially when big Activision-published titles like Destiny 2 are capped to 30fps on Xbox One X and 60fps on Xbox Series S/X.
- meragrin_ 3y ago
  Why do you say that? You can get 4k120hz for about the price of a console so price isn't a limiting factor.
  - xdavidliu 3y ago
    whether someone can afford something and whether someone wants to use it consistently are two different things. I can afford a $3000 gaming PC, but I would never buy one since I'm not that into playing games at the highest settings.
  - rjh29 3y ago
    Admittedly I haven't kept up with the PS5 but the PS4 Pro at least basically let you choose between 4k and 60fps and couldn't do both, and generally you're not going to get 4k120hz on any game, let alone at maximum graphics settings. I feel like the intersection between enthusiasts and console gamers is quite low because most people buy a PC.
PrettyPastry 3y ago
Cloud gaming is great when you are stuck without a console or gaming pc. It runs in the browser, so it works on phones and cheap laptops. That said, the steam deck provides a better gaming experience than a cloud gaming on a phone.
tapoxi 3y ago
For developing markets playing through a controller attached to their phone, its pretty killer. Especially if they get cell providers to bundle in the service with an unlimited plan or as a trial offer. You need to think of Cloud as the mass-market play, and the enthusiasts will want to own a cloud node (Series X) in their own home. The enthusiast console market tends to top out at ~140 million people, very small compared to the number of smartphones out there.
- mock-possum 3y ago
  That’s so hard for me to believe - what kind of awful degraded experience would that be? Like is that your phone, with a controller Bluetoothed in - do you get a Bluetooth headset too? Or are you playing sound through the device speaker? Or wired through a headphone jack? Squinting at a tiny little screen in your lap? Or somehow on a stand up closer to your eyes? Do you cast your screen out to an external display or maybe pipe the video out through your charge port? Doesn’t all that murder the battery? I’m guessing you need it plugged in too? And what, you’re on wifi this whole time? Doesn’t using your smart phone as a nexus for all this put it through a wringer? And at the end of all that, what are you doing - you’re pushing your phone to pretend it’s a gaming console? As compared to just using a low end laptop? It’s just such an alien concept for me. Why such a tortured process to get to stream a game you don’t even own… when you could just use appropriate hardware and play a better suited game?
  - tapoxi 3y ago
    Because that hardware is $300-$500 and not portable. Most controllers are wired-in because they snap to the phone, like the Razer Kishi. Probable using Airpods or other earbuds. Since the processing isn't happening on the phone, it doesn't use much more battery than watching video. Mobile is the predominant form of playing games these days. The goal is to allow the existing mobile players to access other types of games that won't run well natively on a phone. It's not aiming to convert existing hardcore gamers.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
philistine 3y ago
Isn't it stupid that you can't download a game and stream it while it's installing?

rjh29 3y ago

Yeah but people who want 4k120hz etc and play console are an extreme minority.

dm_me_dogs 3y ago
That doesn't mean that playing on the cloud is good though, does it? It's still a subpar experience in terms of reponsiveness and image quality, even on a 60Hz display. It's not my internet connection either, as I have my Series X hooked up with an ethernet cable, and my line is a 500/500 fiber line from Bell, with at most 5ms latency. I should be the ideal customer for cloud gaming, and it's still not good.
- PretzelPirate 3y ago
  I am in the Midwest and have the opposite experience. Most of the time I can't tell the difference between playing on the cloud vs locally on my Series X. Playing battle toads, forza, spelunky 2, etc... I'll sometimes get visual artifacting. I even played Wo Ling and it felt as good as playing locally. When I stream, it's in my Galaxy Fold 4 so resolution doesn't matter to me on that size screen.
- plif 3y ago
  My experience is that it's much better than the alternative of games running natively on your phone. I would say better than the switch too in most cases for me (more battery life, shorter load times) though may depend on the game. I also noticed a significant improvement running it on WiFi after I upgraded to a mesh network. I've only tried over cloud a few times, can appreciate connection requirements may very high, but even being able to load it up wirelessly in different parts of the house or backyard is a big plus for me.
- alonsonic 3y ago
  Cloud gaming is fantastic. I use it daily as I don't have or want to buy a PC or console. I pay $10 a month to play Destiny's latest expansion and I can unsub when I'm done. 4 months of gaming worth $40 instead of the console/PC price. It's also extremely convenient to try new games with a very low barrier of entry. Fantastic service
JohnTHaller 3y ago
Especially when big Activision-published titles like Destiny 2 are capped to 30fps on Xbox One X and 60fps on Xbox Series S/X.
meragrin_ 3y ago
Why do you say that? You can get 4k120hz for about the price of a console so price isn't a limiting factor.
- xdavidliu 3y ago
  whether someone can afford something and whether someone wants to use it consistently are two different things. I can afford a $3000 gaming PC, but I would never buy one since I'm not that into playing games at the highest settings.
- rjh29 3y ago
  Admittedly I haven't kept up with the PS5 but the PS4 Pro at least basically let you choose between 4k and 60fps and couldn't do both, and generally you're not going to get 4k120hz on any game, let alone at maximum graphics settings. I feel like the intersection between enthusiasts and console gamers is quite low because most people buy a PC.

PrettyPastry 3y ago

Cloud gaming is great when you are stuck without a console or gaming pc. It runs in the browser, so it works on phones and cheap laptops. That said, the steam deck provides a better gaming experience than a cloud gaming on a phone.

tapoxi 3y ago

For developing markets playing through a controller attached to their phone, its pretty killer. Especially if they get cell providers to bundle in the service with an unlimited plan or as a trial offer. You need to think of Cloud as the mass-market play, and the enthusiasts will want to own a cloud node (Series X) in their own home. The enthusiast console market tends to top out at ~140 million people, very small compared to the number of smartphones out there.

mock-possum 3y ago
That’s so hard for me to believe - what kind of awful degraded experience would that be? Like is that your phone, with a controller Bluetoothed in - do you get a Bluetooth headset too? Or are you playing sound through the device speaker? Or wired through a headphone jack? Squinting at a tiny little screen in your lap? Or somehow on a stand up closer to your eyes? Do you cast your screen out to an external display or maybe pipe the video out through your charge port? Doesn’t all that murder the battery? I’m guessing you need it plugged in too? And what, you’re on wifi this whole time? Doesn’t using your smart phone as a nexus for all this put it through a wringer? And at the end of all that, what are you doing - you’re pushing your phone to pretend it’s a gaming console? As compared to just using a low end laptop? It’s just such an alien concept for me. Why such a tortured process to get to stream a game you don’t even own… when you could just use appropriate hardware and play a better suited game?
- tapoxi 3y ago
  Because that hardware is $300-$500 and not portable. Most controllers are wired-in because they snap to the phone, like the Razer Kishi. Probable using Airpods or other earbuds. Since the processing isn't happening on the phone, it doesn't use much more battery than watching video. Mobile is the predominant form of playing games these days. The goal is to allow the existing mobile players to access other types of games that won't run well natively on a phone. It's not aiming to convert existing hardcore gamers.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

philistine 3y ago

Isn't it stupid that you can't download a game and stream it while it's installing?