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Microsoft Cloud Gaming - coming to Samsung TVs

bear

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monkeydog

monkeydog

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PSNow was lousy when I tried it on the PC a year or so ago.  No reason for that based my connection.  Maybe it's worth another go?

 

Sony don't treat PSNow as a first class citizen.  It doesn't get new releases as far as I know?  It's also not an 'access anywhere' portal to your existing console library.  I think that's two places where MS can improve on Sony's effort.

 

Have they improved browsing the library as well?  It was pretty crappy when I had a go.

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rafaqat

rafaqat

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13 hours ago, monkeydog said:

 

Nah.  Both have poor performance, poor price flexibility and libraries. 

 

Disagree strongly on the first one.  Ran really well for me. Agree on the second and third point. 

 

Also I got onto the NVidea GeForceNow Beta and I've been playing PC games in the cloud. Smooooth. As. Fuck.

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TehStu

TehStu

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It'll depend on your internet provider. When you're playing a shooter, it's easier to get a tiny amount of data to you quickly. For streaming from things like PS Now, when you do something that thing needs to be encoded and sent to you quickly, so variances in throughout, which stuff like Netflix is going to naturally iron out with buffering, are more apparent. I bet it'll depend on your local equipment, too.

 

We're all going to have to get into quality of service settings on our routers, which at least helps on our side of things. 

 

@Uncle Mike cheers for the Wireshark suggestion, going to have the Pi say monitoring my network traffic to figure out why the Xbox streaming blips.

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mushashi

mushashi

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On 13/10/2018 at 21:51, Stanley said:

How will the library be better for MS' streaming service?

 

I believe the end-game plan is to have parity with the back catalogue of the Xbox One, so anything that can be run on that particular piece of hardware can be run on the xCloud variant, sticking point being the usual one, $$$$$$$$. Which is the same for Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Backwards Compatibility.

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mushashi

mushashi

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On 13/10/2018 at 19:01, Stanley said:

The casual audience also doesn't care about 'full fat console games' or 'traditional games' or whatever people want to label them.

 

At least 400 Million people do, unless you think something as hardcore as PUBG isn't a fullfat console game by design?

 

2 Billion total people interested in playing 'games' according to guestimates, knock off whatever portion you think only want to play Facebook and match-3 and clickers, what's left is your potential audience for a fullfat experience, but not convinced enough to buy an expensive PC or console to play those games on. Would still be a pretty lucrative opportunity imo.

 

The big third parties think so too, they aren't putting their money into it for ideological reasons or wanting to become the biggest landlord.

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mushashi

mushashi

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Of course they don't, but it's an indicator that at least 400 Million people aren't put off by dual stick control schemes, even on a mobile phone, and even you would have to admit that the current console market isn't 400 Million people in size.

 

There is still scope to expand the market for the sort of games made by EA and Ubisoft, the 2nd and (maybe) 3rd largest console third party have both recognised the potential to increase their sales so have put their money where their mouth is and taken a strategic bet on streaming being a part of their future, with EA going so far as to buy their own streaming company. They've already got their own Game Pass competitor, they want to go full Disney and cut out the middleman entirely if they can.

 

 

People can be as sceptical as they want, it hasn't happened (yet) but if the wishes of the games industry come true, you can't say you didn't know about it before hand.

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Stanley

Stanley

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Yeah, I'm not really disputing what you're saying per se, but as PUBG proves you don't need streaming to reach 400 million people, but you do (probably) need to be free to play. So unless these streaming services are free I don't see it happening myself. I mean how many people subscribe to Game Pass or EA Access at the moment, and why will that figure massively rise just because of streaming? 

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mushashi

mushashi

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Free will always be best as it has the lowest barrier to entry, but you can argue streaming is next best as it has the 2nd lowest barrier to entry and is a way lower barrier to getting somebody to pay for console gaming than the current options of a console and expensive games or a console and a subscription service or a reasonable PC. Nearly 100% of potential customers own a phone, bring the games to them, without having to spend massive amounts porting and dumbing them down, which is impractical on a wholesale basis.

 

It's not designed (yet) to take away the expensive existing premium options, they just want more people to eat cake.

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Stanley

Stanley

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It will be interesting to see what happens and the different pricing structures, and also just what is available - will it be the entire Xbox library including enhanced BC stuff or just Game Pass, will it require as Gold sub for online play, etc. 

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  • 5 months later...
mushashi

mushashi

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Microsoft getting out ahead of Google's Stadia announcement with some interviews about the plans for xCloud, some eyebrow raising ideas they have to hide latency:

 

 

Quote

 

Q: How's it going with your solution to latency here? It's still an issue with many services we've seen already, so what kind of latency will we see on xCloud, and how are you going about minimising that?

 

Kareem Choudhry: From the data centres we have near Washington we're seeing really good latency - less than 10 milliseconds that's being added by the traversal to the cloud. Frankly we find more latency in the Bluetooth stack, connected to an Android phone. Part of what I get so excited about, having Azure as our first party cloud, is that I'm able to place hardware, regionally, as close to users as possible. When I talk to game developers, latency is something the industry has been dealing with for a long time, but they've always dealt with it from the multiplayer side. When I go and talk to creative game developers, especiallly in first party, is that they're going to take all those latency mitigation techniques that we apply on the multiplayer side and we're going to put them on the enduser input side. I think it's going to work out okay.

 

 

 

Seems they aren't even aiming it at home users at present, Android was the primary focus, hence why they went with the Xbox One S.

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-03-19-microsofts-cloud-gains-substance

 

Against Stadia, the advantage this has are the lower bandwidth requirements and Microsoft first party software, otherwise you'd choose Stadia for multiplatform games streamed at 4K.

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rafaqat

rafaqat

Posted
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4 hours ago, SozzlyJoe said:

He sounds like Trump there. "We got some smart people who got some techniques, they've got great techniques, and we're going to put them on the user side. I think it's going to work out okay"

 

 

All he's saying is they're going to take some of the techniques for doing multiplayer and applying it to how they manage input from the user.  That's pretty much his last sentence.  Not sure how much more straightforward he could put it.  :)

 

Whether that's just marketing talk or actual stuff they can point to when they launch is another thing.  

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  • 6 months later...
Gavin

Gavin

Posted
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I see there's a public beta for this service you can register for now. I wonder has anyone managed to get invited and could give us some impressions?

 

Sorry if there are other threads about this but a quick Google search brought me here... 

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Gavin

Gavin

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I ended up registering for this and got a reply saying they'll get back to me in a couple of months. 

 

It's probably an automated response from them but, just to chance my arm, I responded saying... 

 

'OK thanks and, can I just add that, I feel I should be invited to this because I've been a loyal and avid xbox fan since the first console. I play loads of diverse games and thoroughly experience and enjoy them (my gamerscore is currently 173292 and I'm also an xbox ambassador) and I'd be able to give you excellent and coherent feedback.
 

Also I think it's a great idea and would love to be a part of it!
 

Thanks for your consideration.'

 

Just because I'm a sucker for experiencing new tech :D

 

Although, that reply probably isn't gonna be seen by anyone. 

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Gavin

Gavin

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Posted (edited)

When I registered a few days ago the website seemed to hang on a blank page, with no 'Registration Complete' confirmation or anything, which made me assume I hadn't registered properly so I just forgot about it.

 

Then, a day or so later, I received the confirmation email.

 

So... check your email maybe?

 

EDIT: Oh sorry, you couldn't even access the sign up page?

Oh well, probably just a temporary glitch, I'd try again later...

Edited by Gavin
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Mr. Gerbik

Mr. Gerbik

Posted
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5 hours ago, Jg15 said:

Has this now closed? Everytime I try and access the sign up page it says "page not found" which is strange, seeing as the Project X Cloud page is still live advertising the ability to sign up.

 

1 hour ago, Gavin said:

When I registered a few days ago the website seemed to hang on a blank page, with no 'Registration Complete' confirmation or anything, which made me assume I hadn't registered properly so I just forgot about it.

 

Then, a day or so later, I received the confirmation email.

 

So... check your email maybe?

 

EDIT: Oh sorry, you couldn't even access the sign up page?

Oh well, probably just a temporary glitch, I'd try again later...

This streaming thing is already off to a good start!

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Jg15

Jg15

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9 hours ago, Gavin said:

When I registered a few days ago the website seemed to hang on a blank page, with no 'Registration Complete' confirmation or anything, which made me assume I hadn't registered properly so I just forgot about it.

 

Then, a day or so later, I received the confirmation email.

 

So... check your email maybe?

 

EDIT: Oh sorry, you couldn't even access the sign up page?

Oh well, probably just a temporary glitch, I'd try again later...

Nope, tried a few times over the past couple of weeks to no avail. Anyone else willing to try, link to the Xcloud page is here https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/xbox-game-streaming/project-xcloud

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T Pot

T Pot

Posted
Posted

I got accepted into the beta this evening. Halo 5, Gears 5, Sea of Thieves & Killer Instincts part of it. 

 

Played a bit of Halo 5, slight bit of noticeable lag, would probably make twitch shooters and fast racing games unplayable. 

 

Wee bit of pixellisation when things get busy, but good. Currently no rumble on the pad when playing it. 

 

You can also play Bluetooth or USB connections with your pad. No on screen buttons yet, no idea about 3rd party pads. 

 

Looking forward to giving it a try on 4G when I have a chance. 

 

 

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Jg15

Jg15

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Just found out that I was accepted for the program (Bristol area). Downloaded the associated app and will have a proper go later.

 

Any recommendations on controller clips for your phone? I note there is a really cheap ine on Amazon (MS state in the email that they will be offering an official one in the next month that will probably cost an arm and a leg)

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bear

bear

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https://www.thurrott.com/games/220536/designed-for-xbox-goes-mobile

 

Quote

 

Microsoft announced today that it is expanding its “Designed for Xbox” ecosystem to include mobile gaming thanks to the coming release of Project xCloud.

“Our Designed for Xbox program enables collaborations with top-tier hardware partners to deliver not only choice but also the best possible Xbox gaming experiences across console, PC, and now, mobile,” Microsoft’s  James Shields writes. “Soon there will be a wide array of Xbox-branded partner devices that are focused on mobile gaming—think controller clips, mobile-first controllers, and other hardware optimized for phones and tablets. We are working on a roadmap of products with experienced partners and are currently in talks with 8bitDo, Gamevice, HORI, PowerA, Razer, and more, to explore creating the best possible hardware experiences for Project xCloud.”

The first product is a clip from PowerA to attach your Xbox controller to your phone.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/Power-A-MOGA-Mobile-Gaming-Clip-for-Xbox/8RTF503L2PL9?activetab=pivot:overviewtab

 

Good to see 8bitdo on there as I don't think they currently make anything that works with an Xbox console. Hopefully that'll change now.

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