The Verge: You’ll soon be able to try Xbox games before downloading them

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Microsoft is planning to let Xbox console owners try games before they download them later this year. The new Xbox dashboard feature will allow console players to stream games through Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service instantly. It’s part of a push to integrate xCloud more into Xbox consoles and into the Xbox app on Windows PCs.

“Later this year, we’ll add cloud gaming directly to the Xbox app on PCs, and integrated into our console experience, to light up all kinds of scenarios, like ‘try before you download,’” says Kareem Choudhry, head of cloud gaming at Microsoft.

Microsoft isn’t detailing all of the ways that xCloud will appear on Xbox consoles, but trying games before you download them certainly opens up possibilities for Xbox owners who want to know what a game is like before buying it.

That’s sweet. I remember them talking about this a while ago so its good that progress has been made. I’m curious if they can get this working for EAPlay content as well, would have been useful when I was downloading FIFA 21.

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Yea that will be a sweet feature, hope at some point it is try before you buy

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That is likely the entire point of this. And to let ppl start a Game Pass instantly while it dl’s in bg.

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:wink:

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You’d figure they would say try before you buy if that is what they meant,

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I see a few applications for this

“Try before you buy” - you basically get to demo a vertical slice of the game

“Play while it downloads” - Perfect for Game pass, download the game but stream it while it downloads.

“Stream only for Game Pass” - instead of downloading games, just stream it immediately. This would be great for smaller indie games that I don’t care to download.

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If they framed it that way it would not match their plans for using it in Game Pass though (since you don’t buy those games).

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You can buy gamepass games, youneven get a discount

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That isn’t relevant to what I said…?

I’m not saying you can’t buy GP games, I am saying if they framed it as being about trying stuff before buying it then that leaves GP games out of the language (since 99.99% of the time ppl aren’t dl’ing games from GP in order to buy them). Wording stuff that way is not something that would make any sense given their emphasis on GP right now. It’s also something that would work for both GP and non-GP games technically speaking, so no reason not to make it a system level feature in the new storefront.

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Is this coming to xbox one?

Because it would be good if i can play seriesX exclusives via cloud on my bedroom xbox one, i was going to upgrade my bedroom to a series S but i like the blu ray/dvd player on the xbox one.

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I have no doubt this will happen. It’ll be great for making Series X games more accessible, allowing people to use an old device they may have lying around.