Microsoft has been making a big push into the rapidly-growing cloud gaming segment with its xCloud beta service. Said service will be out of beta and ready for primetime in about six weeks, shedding its name to simply become a part of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. On September 15th it comes to Android phones and tablets in 22 different countries.
100 games will be available at launch, though the full list of titles hasn’t been revealed yet. Mainstays of the Xbox library like HALO, Gears of War, Sea of Thieves, Ori and the Blind Forrest, Sunset Overdrive, and The Outer Worlds have already been confirmed. Players will be able to use generic Android controllers, but new controllers made in partnership with Microsoft are on their way from the usual suspects: Razer, PowerA, 8BitDo, and others. Touch controls with gyroscopic aiming will also be available.
Oddly, there’s no iOS version of the service at launch—apparently Microsoft has been testing Game Pass streaming on the iPhone and iPad since February, but App Store hurdles have kept them from getting it to a widescale beta testers. There doesn’t appear to be any way to stream the games to your PC or Xbox, either. That’s something Microsoft’s competitors, Google Stadia and GeForce NOW, can do already. But subscribers to the Xbox Game Pass can simply download and play most of those titles directly.
Here’s the fill list of countries supported at launch:
- Austria
- Belgium
- Canada
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Hungary
- Ireland
- Italy
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Slovakia
- Spain
- South Korea
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
- United States
Streaming will be a perk of Game Pass Ultimate, Microsoft’s ballooning games-as-a-service push as it moves into its next console generation with the Xbox Series X. Most of the company’s big new games are included in the $15-a-month tier, Netflix-style, with access on both the Xbox and PC, and now streaming to Android phones. Notably, the Series X’s flagship title HALO Infinite will be included in Game Pass on day one.
Source: The Verge