How Microsoft And Samsung May Finally Take Cloud Gaming Mainstream

Cloud gaming hasn’t had the best start and that is quite acceptable. Both Google Stadia and Xbox Cloud Gaming have been available for less than three years, and the latter has only recently been a part of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. 

Cloud-based gaming services are still in their infancy compared to the length of time (more than a decade) that music and video streaming have had to develop. Considering all of these challenges, early cloud gaming attempts have performed admirably for their youth. 

However, that relative success hasn’t always been reflected in actual subscriber counts. For instance, Google Stadia is still a somewhat specialized service. As of the most recent report, NVIDIA’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service had 14 million subscribers.

Then we have Microsoft. Xbox Game Pass, arguably the most popular gaming-as-a-service offering on the market, is owned by Microsoft. It was one of the dominant forces in the console gaming industry long before anything was cloud-based.

What Do Microsoft And Samsung Need To Succeed?

If these two want to lead the first wave of truly mainstream cloud gaming, they need to be able to attract two very important but very different groups: casual gamers and competitive gamers.

Casual Gamers

In many ways, this group will be easier to understand than the other one. In the past, hardware makers and game makers often didn’t pay attention to casual gamers.

• They were unfairly ignored by the AAA developers, who were only catering to the most ardent gamers via PC and console because they preferred mobile games and more straightforward games.

• The gaming business discovered that casual players have just as much disposable income as their more serious counterparts and that there are many more of them than competitive players.

• Samsung and Microsoft have no reason why they can’t have the same advantages as their smartphone-based competitors if they can make playing console-quality games as easy and cheap as mobile gaming.

Competitive Gamers

To be clear, Microsoft, Samsung, and anyone else who wants to succeed in the cloud-based gaming industry should, of course, try to reduce the lag, latency, and any other technical snags that can impair the gaming experience for more devoted players. 

• Competitive gamers are frequently the most devoted, opinionated, and powerful members of the community, even if they may be a rarer species than their casual counterparts in terms of pure numbers. For instance, you won’t typically see a top-tier, competitive Fortnite streamer being overly tolerant of lag spikes.

• While the problems are still being ironed out, casual gamers can offer a temporary source of income to keep cloud-based gaming alive and flourishing. However, they must never be viewed as the industry’s ultimate objective. 

• Cloud-based gaming will inevitably develop from its current infant stage to a technology that may one day replace physical PCs and consoles in the same way Netflix has replaced your DVD collection. 

• Just as online video streaming eventually evolved from the 240p, incessantly buffering mess it once was to the 4K, HDR-enabled tech today.

Will This Make Cloud Gaming Popular?

While there is no doubt that it has the potential, there are still several challenges that have dogged cloud-based gaming goals from the beginning. 

While some of these issues can be resolved by the new Microsoft-Samsung partnership, others are a little more cloudy. A few of the most important issues are as follows:

1. Costing

One of the main advantages of cloud gaming overall is the cost. In the early days of streaming music, several service providers made the argument that paying for just one record per month would cost more than subscribing to their services. Which provided you access to millions of albums, to attract new subscribers.

The reasoning still applies in this case, however, games are used instead of albums. But for other people, the initial outlay for game streaming hardware has remained a tougher pill to swallow.

This new alliance significantly reduces that expense. Of course, you’ll need a TV to play on one. All you’ll need in addition to it is a controller if you choose one of the compatible Samsung smart TVs or monitors from its 2022 lineup.

2. Ease of use

Another key advantage of cloud gaming is how simple it is to utilize. The ideal gaming experience should allow you to play from any location, on several devices, and with little to no setup. 

Unfortunately, in these early days, especially for those hoping to game on TV, reality has frequently fallen short of those ideals.

Undoubtedly, many less technically aware players have shied away due to the aforementioned requirement for a linked PC or other game streaming devices. 

Additionally, it might be difficult to manage web apps and browser-based deployments on platforms that refuse to offer first-party support.

Users only need to login into the Xbox Game Pass section of the Samsung Gaming Hub to get going thanks to Samsung’s eager engagement in this arrangement. There is no need for workarounds or external connections.

3. Gameplay Performance

Theoretically, this partnership should offer one of the quickest, simplest, and least expensive ways to settle in on the couch and start playing.

Until we get our hands on the Xbox Cloud Gaming service operating on a Samsung TV from 2022 on June 30, we won’t be able to say for sure how successfully Microsoft and Samsung will be able to account for all of them. 

The two do, however, have about the best chance to get it right. Samsung is a willing and cooperative partner in this project, as was already mentioned. 

As a result, Microsoft should have no trouble locally installing any necessary software or apps, collaborating with the relevant hardware manufacturer (Samsung) to eliminate lag and latency issues, and regularly releasing updates to enhance both individual game and system performance.

Conclusion

Of course, I can’t say for sure whether the partnership between Microsoft and Samsung will mark “that” turning point in the history of cloud gaming. We’ll say that it has the best probability of any one period in the history of cloud gaming. 

Cloud-based games are here and ready to play because of Microsoft’s influence in the gaming industry and Samsung’s extensive home entertainment market presence. These two companies have all the proper ingredients to make this never-before-seen special sauce.