The arrival of Xbox Cloud Gaming proves, if nothing else, that Microsoft hasn’t abandoned its global game streaming project, but the slow pace in this area is strange.
Even the most progressive among gamers are perhaps no longer able to put their finger on the wonderful fate of cloud gaming, and the streaming future that once seemed obvious increasingly resembles a black hole full of mystery, because in some this form of use seems to continue to struggle. The sudden shutdown of Google Stadia has increased uncertainty about fate of cloud gamingbecause the service worked perfectly, but the power of the technological platform was evidently not echoed by an equally solid organization, which led to the fall of the greatest herald of the technology in question.
The ball is now in Microsoft’s court, which seems to have taken another timid step forward in recent days by bringing Xbox Cloud Gaming to Fire TV devices, curiously owned by one of the few direct competitors in this area, namely Amazon, which with its Luna service seems to want to seek more space in this period. It’s still not enough, however: with the means that the Redmond company has at its disposal, it is sincerely incomprehensible the slowness with which it is moving in trying to impose cloud gaming more decisively. The cancellation of the Xbox Keystone project could make sense since, as reported by Phil Spencer himself, it is still difficult to find a price point that is low enough to convince the mass public but not too low to make it difficult to include the central block of the device plus a controller, so its shelving can be understandable.
An incomprehensible slowness
It is much less understandable why it has not yet been decided on a global diffusion of one simple app to use on every TV to access Xbox Cloud Gaming, except for specific agreements (again) made with Samsung for its Gaming Hub.
The idea is that Microsoft still has to resolve several technical issues behind the platform, which in fact does not yet have completely convincing performances, especially outside the US and in areas not covered by fast and solid connections. In essence, we are still waiting for Xbox Cloud Gaming to come out of its beta phase in which it has been for years now, and which has also led us to think that the company was practically abandoning the project, only to then come out with these novelties such as the launch on Amazon Fire TV that seem to go in the opposite direction.
You also have to consider that the entire Xbox division still appears to be a open construction site: with the entire last year spent largely chasing the legal issues related to the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the conclusion of the matter could finally lead to a greater commitment to the development of the infrastructure, which can now also count on the powerful contribution of the productions of the recently acquired publisher. The not exactly rosy situation of the Xbox consoles at the moment could also favor the concentration on cloud gaming, as a sort of support network that should still guarantee the relevance of the service even if it were not to expand to rival consoles, given that it could simply use any other connected device. In essence, “every screen could be an Xbox”, as Sarah Bond said some time ago, but the road ahead still seems very long, especially as long as Microsoft itself shows that it does not want to push the initiative too much.
This is an editorial written by a member of the editorial staff and is not necessarily representative of the editorial line of Multiplayer.it.
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