Agreed. Like I said, I eschewed Sony and their great exclusives to go with MS this time. And most of my gaming will be on GP because I like to play natively as well. I’m simply saying that Amazon partnered with Nvidia is a very compelling competitor. Especially since I have Prime, and you don’t even have to buy a crappy controller. Unlike Stadia, I might actually give Luna a spin.
Not just that they say at 1080p it will be using up 10GB/hr of data, that’s crazy amount. xCloud was something like 10x less.
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Yep. Apart from MS, Google and Amazon, the only other companies that could (would?) have slapped down $7.5 billion for gaming content was Facebook and maybe Tencent. Wouldn’t be surprised to see Ubisoft snapped up, if they want to be brought of course.
Begun, the cloud-gaming content wars have. Either way this is great news for developers, more platforms to sell content to.
It is not $7/month, just evaluation period, and does not include Ubisoft, thats separate channel that will have cost of its own.
Luna is $7 in same sense as xCloud is $1.
Looking forward to the Luna fanboys. That’s a different breed
Microsoft is so far ahead of these streaming services that it won’t even come close in regards to competition.
Game Pass has console and PC locked up, xCloud will expand and the content is already AAA.
I also wonder latency on this thing, MS has been researching and building AI (outatime and kahawai) for over a decade
There is absolutely plenty of third party content including Destiny 2 + Beyond Light, now with Bethesda + 15 studios there is a plethora of first party content on Console and PC.
Just because you don’t subscribe to Game Pass, it doesn’t mean you represent the growth trajectory. GP has amassed 5 million subscribers in the past 5 months.
Streaming will be an additive to gaming for the foreseeable future, nothing beats playing games on local hardware.
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This is the million dollar question right here. Does game streaming remain a secondary way to play, or is there a future where it replaces local play on PC and console as the main way to experience games? I really don’t know. I think either could happen.
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There are two segments, the enthusiast and streamers will always play on local hardware. That crowd complains about a few milliseconds of latency, there is no way streaming will be viable option to play games unless these tech companies figured out how to beat the speed of light.
The casual segment play games on mobile and will be more susceptible to streaming games. This is why MS released a $299 console because it competes for these customers. You still get to play Game Pass games on local hardware and run the best.
These concerns that the usual suspects have are the same concerns that was said about Stadia. Stadia is a ghost town and isn’t even close to Game Pass. MS isn’t letting new competitors enter easily either with their Samsun partnership, xCloud will be on more devices than Amazon.
At the end, Content wins and Microsoft already has a stable of 23 high quality studios, partnership with EA, and relationships with every publisher in the industry.
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I think Microsoft and Xbox should give Sony a hand here, help them build up PSNow. I would rather have good ol PS to banter with than the other evil giants… I don’t really want to think about what a Luna-fan would look like…shudder.
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the problem Stadia and Amazon will run into with the casual segment based solely on how the services are now. A casual user who is playing on a phone games isn’t going to buy a controller to play games on the phone. Thats a pretty big leap to go from I’m playing playing random mobile game x, to i now have a controller, and a mounting device, and now im playing assassins creed.
Xcloud does have a system built in for touchscreen controls. However, more importantly the more enthusiast gamers who would be willing to use such a service for the most part if they bought the game once on there main platform are probably not going to want to buy the game again or a subscribe to a separate service to play via the cloud. Plus your game progress wouldn’t carry over.
Microsoft has more of a complete service. So it will be interesting to see if Amazon or Google can actually catch up.
And it is an introductory price.
This already is better than Google Stadia, lol. Not that it’s hard to do that or anything.
Anyway, Microsoft already has a huge lead over Google and Amazon with 23 studios and they have a lot of experience with games, something Google and Amazon do not have much of. I know Amazon has a game studio, but we all know how Crucible went. xCloud already has a large selection of games, though I think it would be a good idea for Microsoft to have xCloud be available by itself for people who are only really interested in streaming and don’t want Game Pass.
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Imagine if they bought Ubisoft though. They would be right there. Already looks like they are forming two big relationships one is Ubisoft the other is Focus Home, both major publishers.
Microsoft buying Zenimax was check & mate when it comes to their cloud gaming competitors Google & Amazon. Either of those had to have been in the running as well, but Zenimax preferred to be under XBox. 
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Huh, I didn’t really think about that. Amazon definitely has the funds to do so, that would give them a big boost and pose a serious threat to Microsoft. I would hate to see that happen but it’s not outside the realm of possibility.
I don’t think UbiSoft wants to be bought. As somebody else mentioned, it wasn’t long ago that they fought off Vivendi. It will be interesting to watch how this unfolds. Luna compatibility with Mac OS X is big for me, especially when I’m able to get back on the road for work again.
Maybe by that time, MS will have worked out their differences with Apple over XCloud
Don’t argue with Lunatics! Very volatile situation!
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haha nice one!