7 ms·

I didn’t even realize Microsoft had a steaming game service. Is it widely used?

by upon_drumhead 3y ago

deprecative 3y ago
The UK's rejection of the ActiBlizzKing acquisition was because of Microsoft's cloud business.
- thesuperbigfrog 3y ago
  Microsoft agreed to sell off cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft to help the deal go through: https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/22/23828302/microsoft-activision-blizzard-acquisition-ubisoft-cloud-gaming-rights-uk-cma https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/22/23828302/microsoft-activi...
  - solardev 3y ago
    Yeah, and a few weeks after that, many Gamepass games (including Starfield) started popping up on Geforce Now. It's wonderful.
    - yurishimo 3y ago
      I thought GeForce now was a “bring your own library” service? I think they can auth with steam directly and you can play most games available on the steam store.
      - sco1 3y ago
        It is still up to publishers whether or not their game is available to stream.
      - solardev 3y ago
        It is. You can play a subset of games from Steam, Epic, Ubi Plus, and Game Pass -- if the publisher opted them in. For Game Pass specifically, you don't own the games... it's a subscription service, like EA Play or Ubi Plus, that lets you play from a library of games as long as you're subscribed. Of those, several (but not all) are also playable on GeForce Now. You still have to have a PC Game Pass (or Ultimate) subscription. Without GeForce Now, if you have PC Game Pass (the cheaper plan), you have to install and play those games on your own computer. If you have Game Pass Ultimate, you can also stream some of those games from Microsoft's cloud of Xboxes. They are inferior to Nvidia's offering, but the selection might be better as long as you don't mind lower resolution and having to use a controller for most games. You also get access to the EA Play subscription library that way. Confusing, right? It's a pity. When GeForce Now first launched, you could play any game on it -- all of Steam was available -- but publishers started complaining I guess (who knows why? maybe they wanted to one day launch their own services, heh, good luck with that). Notably, there were a few games that were Stadia streaming exclusives (like Red Dead Redemption and Elder Scrolls Online). Once Stadia died, there was no way to stream those anymore (unless you rent a whole virtual PC like Shadow.tech). Can't play those now, sadly. There are a lot of streaming services now: First-party ones like Playstation Plus, Amazon Luna, Xbox Cloud, Ubi Cloud (via Luna). There are third-party stream-a-game-directly ones that just launch you into Steam and/or the game directly, no OS maintenance required: GeForce Now and Boosteroid. There are also "rent a PC" style streaming services like Shadow, AirGPU, probably others (including renting them directly from cloud providers, usually at an incredibly high price). Of all those, GeForce Now offers by far the best performance and quality, because Nvidia both controls the supply of RTX cards and also has written some incredible software to support the streaming, enabling play at 4k/ultrawide/120 Hz/low-latency via Reflex, etc. It is also the best value in terms of monthly costs. Its primary downside is the limited library available; only some games are available on there (https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/games/ https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/games/).
        charcircuit 3y ago
        >but publishers started complaining I guess (who knows why? maybe they wanted to one day launch their own services, heh, good luck with that). They could simply want Nvidia to purchase rights to use their game. If you made a movie you wouldn't want random streaming services to be able to stream your movie without paying you for the rights to do so.
        alanfranz 3y ago
        Geforce now doesn’t directly offer games. You need to pay to buy those via Steam or another store; you effectively login to a remote Windows desktop and get that streamed. So, I don’t understand publishers’ complaints, people could only play games they paid for, and Nvidia provided the streaming service. It’s probably technically correct on the publisher side, but I feel Nvidia did nothing wrong there.
        charcircuit 3y ago
        >Geforce now doesn’t directly offer games. But they do use the games commercially. >So, I don’t understand publishers’ complaints Nvidia gains value by having publisher's games in their catalog. Publishers want Nvidia to pay for that value.
        solardev 3y ago
        I don't understand this line of thought. What difference to the publisher does it make if I buy a PC or rent a Nvidia VM to play their game? They get paid through a sale, not based on what computer I play it on. And those games are still playable on Shadow, Airgpu, etc., just as bigger headaches. There are many titles I've purchased because they were available on GFN. (And many I didn't because I don't have a machine to play them on otherwise).
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        3y ago
usea 3y ago
Reportedly over 30 million users.
- dmonitor 3y ago
  they recently rebranded xbox live gold (required to play console games online multiplayer) under the same name as their game streaming service.
  - solardev 3y ago
    I think you actually have to pay for the Ultimate tier. Their branding is SUPER confusing. If you play on PC, PC Game Pass gets you access to hundreds of games but no streaming. If you play on Xbox, Game Pass Core gets you multiplayer and a few free games but no streaming. If you want streaming or play on both PC and Xbox, the Ultimate membership gets you everything. If you want just the PC games and streaming, you can sign up for PC Game Pass and separately for Nvidia Geforce Now, which streams a subset of Game Pass games but at much higher quality and performance.
    - LegitShady 3y ago
      correct. only xbox live ultimate comes with gamepass streaming, and I think EA play comes with the ultimate edition as well but not the other tiers.
      - c0pium 3y ago
        > xbox live ultimate There is no such product. The comment you’re replying to said it correctly.
        solardev 3y ago
        To be fair, Microsoft has changed the name of that service several times over the last few years. Even as a member I couldn't figure out what they were talking about because it would get a new name every few months.
taftster 3y ago
Yes. It's arguably one of the better attempts at cloud gaming. I've tried it, still prefer locally hosted games, but the days of cloud gaming are definitely coming soon.
- tasogare 3y ago
  [dead]
- solardev 3y ago
  You should try Geforce Now if you haven't already... it performs a lot better than xCloud or Stadia or Shadow. Nvidia has that first-party advantage of being able to stream from RTX 4080s.
  - imagine99 3y ago
    Are any of those, or a similar well-polished service, available for use with your own workstation, e.g. for 3D/engineering/video editing workloads? (Basically remote desktop on steroids)
    - solardev 3y ago
      Shadow is just a remote desktop with a GPU. It gives you Windows and the rest is up to you. I wouldn't call it well polished though. It works but it's kinda janky, with heavy compression artifacts and occasional input sensitivity issues.
- pelagicAustral 3y ago
  Not in the Falkland Islands, they're not...
  - abstractbeliefs 3y ago
    Is that where you at at present? Full-time or just visiting?
solardev 3y ago
It's OK. Good value when combined with Game Pass. It means you can stream hundreds of games to any device with one monthly charge, like Netflix for games. Starfield's on there too, along with a bunch of other ones. You have to pay for the "Ultimate" tier to stream, though, and the quality isn't great because they stream from actual Xbox consoles. https://www.xbox.com/en-us/xbox-game-pass/ultimate?xr=shellnav https://www.xbox.com/en-us/xbox-game-pass/ultimate?xr=shelln... If you want better graphics fidelity and performance, you can also now play certain Game Pass games on Nvidia's Geforce Now. Whereas xCloud games stream from underpowered consoles, GFN runs on RTX 4080s and offers MUCH better graphics and performance. It also lets you use a mouse/keyboard for all the supported games, while xCloud streaming games normally limit you to the Xbox version and don't let you use a mouse or keyboard unless the game itself supports it on the Xbox (like Gears). To do this, you would need both a GFN subscription and a PC Game Pass subscription (though not ultimate). You can also just use GFN with Steam, which offers a superior experience overall.
kaycebasques 3y ago
My wife and I use it regularly enough for me not to question the $15 per month Game Pass subscription. Was a very pleasant surprise when we discovered that we could play Xbox games on our Samsung TV without ever owning a physical console. Just needed to buy a controller. There are some weird rough edges, though. I was very excited to play Fallout 76 with my brother and very disappointed to discover that the cloud gaming system has some limitation around headsets and wireless controllers.
INTPenis 3y ago
I was making fun of game streaming until recently, didn't understand the use case because latency has to be an issue. But now I'm a digital nomad with just two laptops, the best GPU I have is a Radeon 680M, and I really wanted to play Baldur's Gate 3. So I signed up for a streaming service and it works great. 9 euro/month and I can play more than I need to over some sort of VDI setup I guess. I think it can be a real hit for a lot of games, to a lot of people, but some games obviously are best played locally.

I didn’t even realize Microsoft had a steaming game service. Is it widely used?

deprecative 3y ago

The UK's rejection of the ActiBlizzKing acquisition was because of Microsoft's cloud business.

thesuperbigfrog 3y ago
Microsoft agreed to sell off cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft to help the deal go through: https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/22/23828302/microsoft-activision-blizzard-acquisition-ubisoft-cloud-gaming-rights-uk-cma https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/22/23828302/microsoft-activi...
- solardev 3y ago
  Yeah, and a few weeks after that, many Gamepass games (including Starfield) started popping up on Geforce Now. It's wonderful.
  - yurishimo 3y ago
    I thought GeForce now was a “bring your own library” service? I think they can auth with steam directly and you can play most games available on the steam store.
    - sco1 3y ago
      It is still up to publishers whether or not their game is available to stream.
    - solardev 3y ago
      It is. You can play a subset of games from Steam, Epic, Ubi Plus, and Game Pass -- if the publisher opted them in. For Game Pass specifically, you don't own the games... it's a subscription service, like EA Play or Ubi Plus, that lets you play from a library of games as long as you're subscribed. Of those, several (but not all) are also playable on GeForce Now. You still have to have a PC Game Pass (or Ultimate) subscription. Without GeForce Now, if you have PC Game Pass (the cheaper plan), you have to install and play those games on your own computer. If you have Game Pass Ultimate, you can also stream some of those games from Microsoft's cloud of Xboxes. They are inferior to Nvidia's offering, but the selection might be better as long as you don't mind lower resolution and having to use a controller for most games. You also get access to the EA Play subscription library that way. Confusing, right? It's a pity. When GeForce Now first launched, you could play any game on it -- all of Steam was available -- but publishers started complaining I guess (who knows why? maybe they wanted to one day launch their own services, heh, good luck with that). Notably, there were a few games that were Stadia streaming exclusives (like Red Dead Redemption and Elder Scrolls Online). Once Stadia died, there was no way to stream those anymore (unless you rent a whole virtual PC like Shadow.tech). Can't play those now, sadly. There are a lot of streaming services now: First-party ones like Playstation Plus, Amazon Luna, Xbox Cloud, Ubi Cloud (via Luna). There are third-party stream-a-game-directly ones that just launch you into Steam and/or the game directly, no OS maintenance required: GeForce Now and Boosteroid. There are also "rent a PC" style streaming services like Shadow, AirGPU, probably others (including renting them directly from cloud providers, usually at an incredibly high price). Of all those, GeForce Now offers by far the best performance and quality, because Nvidia both controls the supply of RTX cards and also has written some incredible software to support the streaming, enabling play at 4k/ultrawide/120 Hz/low-latency via Reflex, etc. It is also the best value in terms of monthly costs. Its primary downside is the limited library available; only some games are available on there (https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/games/ https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/games/).
      - charcircuit 3y ago
        >but publishers started complaining I guess (who knows why? maybe they wanted to one day launch their own services, heh, good luck with that). They could simply want Nvidia to purchase rights to use their game. If you made a movie you wouldn't want random streaming services to be able to stream your movie without paying you for the rights to do so.
        alanfranz 3y ago
        Geforce now doesn’t directly offer games. You need to pay to buy those via Steam or another store; you effectively login to a remote Windows desktop and get that streamed. So, I don’t understand publishers’ complaints, people could only play games they paid for, and Nvidia provided the streaming service. It’s probably technically correct on the publisher side, but I feel Nvidia did nothing wrong there.
        charcircuit 3y ago
        >Geforce now doesn’t directly offer games. But they do use the games commercially. >So, I don’t understand publishers’ complaints Nvidia gains value by having publisher's games in their catalog. Publishers want Nvidia to pay for that value.
        solardev 3y ago
        I don't understand this line of thought. What difference to the publisher does it make if I buy a PC or rent a Nvidia VM to play their game? They get paid through a sale, not based on what computer I play it on. And those games are still playable on Shadow, Airgpu, etc., just as bigger headaches. There are many titles I've purchased because they were available on GFN. (And many I didn't because I don't have a machine to play them on otherwise).
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        3y ago

usea 3y ago

Reportedly over 30 million users.

dmonitor 3y ago
they recently rebranded xbox live gold (required to play console games online multiplayer) under the same name as their game streaming service.
- solardev 3y ago
  I think you actually have to pay for the Ultimate tier. Their branding is SUPER confusing. If you play on PC, PC Game Pass gets you access to hundreds of games but no streaming. If you play on Xbox, Game Pass Core gets you multiplayer and a few free games but no streaming. If you want streaming or play on both PC and Xbox, the Ultimate membership gets you everything. If you want just the PC games and streaming, you can sign up for PC Game Pass and separately for Nvidia Geforce Now, which streams a subset of Game Pass games but at much higher quality and performance.
  - LegitShady 3y ago
    correct. only xbox live ultimate comes with gamepass streaming, and I think EA play comes with the ultimate edition as well but not the other tiers.
    - c0pium 3y ago
      > xbox live ultimate There is no such product. The comment you’re replying to said it correctly.
      - solardev 3y ago
        To be fair, Microsoft has changed the name of that service several times over the last few years. Even as a member I couldn't figure out what they were talking about because it would get a new name every few months.

taftster 3y ago

Yes. It's arguably one of the better attempts at cloud gaming. I've tried it, still prefer locally hosted games, but the days of cloud gaming are definitely coming soon.

tasogare 3y ago
[dead]
solardev 3y ago
You should try Geforce Now if you haven't already... it performs a lot better than xCloud or Stadia or Shadow. Nvidia has that first-party advantage of being able to stream from RTX 4080s.
- imagine99 3y ago
  Are any of those, or a similar well-polished service, available for use with your own workstation, e.g. for 3D/engineering/video editing workloads? (Basically remote desktop on steroids)
  - solardev 3y ago
    Shadow is just a remote desktop with a GPU. It gives you Windows and the rest is up to you. I wouldn't call it well polished though. It works but it's kinda janky, with heavy compression artifacts and occasional input sensitivity issues.
pelagicAustral 3y ago
Not in the Falkland Islands, they're not...
- abstractbeliefs 3y ago
  Is that where you at at present? Full-time or just visiting?

solardev 3y ago

It's OK. Good value when combined with Game Pass. It means you can stream hundreds of games to any device with one monthly charge, like Netflix for games. Starfield's on there too, along with a bunch of other ones. You have to pay for the "Ultimate" tier to stream, though, and the quality isn't great because they stream from actual Xbox consoles. https://www.xbox.com/en-us/xbox-game-pass/ultimate?xr=shellnav https://www.xbox.com/en-us/xbox-game-pass/ultimate?xr=shelln... If you want better graphics fidelity and performance, you can also now play certain Game Pass games on Nvidia's Geforce Now. Whereas xCloud games stream from underpowered consoles, GFN runs on RTX 4080s and offers MUCH better graphics and performance. It also lets you use a mouse/keyboard for all the supported games, while xCloud streaming games normally limit you to the Xbox version and don't let you use a mouse or keyboard unless the game itself supports it on the Xbox (like Gears). To do this, you would need both a GFN subscription and a PC Game Pass subscription (though not ultimate). You can also just use GFN with Steam, which offers a superior experience overall.

kaycebasques 3y ago

My wife and I use it regularly enough for me not to question the $15 per month Game Pass subscription. Was a very pleasant surprise when we discovered that we could play Xbox games on our Samsung TV without ever owning a physical console. Just needed to buy a controller. There are some weird rough edges, though. I was very excited to play Fallout 76 with my brother and very disappointed to discover that the cloud gaming system has some limitation around headsets and wireless controllers.

INTPenis 3y ago

I was making fun of game streaming until recently, didn't understand the use case because latency has to be an issue. But now I'm a digital nomad with just two laptops, the best GPU I have is a Radeon 680M, and I really wanted to play Baldur's Gate 3. So I signed up for a streaming service and it works great. 9 euro/month and I can play more than I need to over some sort of VDI setup I guess. I think it can be a real hit for a lot of games, to a lot of people, but some games obviously are best played locally.