Living with Game Streaming (Premium)

I’ve been gaming exclusively on Xbox since the release of the Xbox 360 in 2005. But two console generations later, the world is changing. And cloud-based game streaming is on the cusp of eliminating the key advantages of game consoles when compared to PC gaming, and many are providing the same all-you-can-eat benefits we see elsewhere in video and music streaming services. It’s time to take a closer look.

Here in late 2020, there are four key game streaming services as I see it: Xbox Cloud Gaming (formerly Project xCloud), which is part of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, Google Stadia, NVIDIA GeForce Now, and Amazon Luna, the latter of which is still in early preview. It is not coincidental, I think, that three of the four are offered by tech giants with strong cloud computing and AI infrastructures: In many ways, this is as important as relationships with game developers and studios.

That said, it is the outlier in that list—GeForce Now—that inspired this article series. This is a service I’d not really paid much attention to, but when NVIDIA announced this week that it would bypass Apple’s draconian App Store rules and bring its game streaming service to iPhones and iPads via the web, I took a closer look at GeForce Now and was impressed by what I learned, despite some weird differences between it and the other services. And so here we are.

Speaking of differences, there are many, even from a high level, between each of these services and even the business models, curiously, are not always very similar. So here’s a quick rundown of each service, its cost, and what it offers.

Amazon Luna

Cost per month: $5.99 (during early access, price will go up)
Plays on: Desktop (web), iPhone and iPad (web), Fire TV
Native controller available: Yes
Works with Xbox Wireless Controller/PlayStation Dual-Shock: Yes
Free games provided with paid subscription: No
Massive game library as part of subscription: Yes
Provides discounts on paid games: Yes

Announced in September, Amazon Luna is now available via an invite-only early access program. Stupidly, I received an invite but let it lapse, so I’ve reapplied. But Brad accepted his invite and provided a hands-on look at the new service. Put simply, Luna is a Spotify/Netflix-like game streaming service where you pay a monthly fee and gain access to a library of games. As a new service, and one in limited preview, it will likely lag behind the market leaders when it comes to the number and quality of games, at least for now.

Google Stadia

Cost per month: Free or $9.99
Plays on: Desktop (web), Android, iPhone, iPad, Google Chromecast Ultra
Native controller available: Yes
Works with Xbox Wireless Controller/PlayStation Dual-Shock: Yes
Free games provided with paid subscription: Limited
Massive game library as part of subscription: No
Provides discounts on paid games: Yes

Launched one year ago, Google Stadia is a unique—one might say “Googly”—take on game streaming. There are free and paid tiers, and paying for the Stadia Pro service obviously brings a few perks, including 4K/UHD/5.1 surround sound support, paid game discounts, and a small selection of free games (during the lifetime of the subscription). But in both free and Pro versions, you simply buy games from Google and then stream them to whatever supported device(s) you wish to use. I was quick to dump on Stadia last year, but a year later, Google has improved the service a lot in the interim and has added many games.

NVIDIA GeForce Now

Cost per month: Free or $4.99
Plays on: Windows, Mac, Chromebook, Android, iPhone and iPad (web), NVIDIA Shield
Native controller available: No
Works with Xbox Wireless Controller/PlayStation Dual-Shock: Yes
Free games provided with paid subscription: Limited
Massive game library as part of subscription: No
Provides discounts on paid games: No

NVIDIA GeForce Now launched in February and, as noted above, it’s an odd outlier in this market as it doesn’t really offer games to subscribers but instead lets them access the PC-based games they already own, but streamed from the cloud to compatible devices. There are free and paid tiers, though the free tier is limited to 60-minute gaming sessions, while paid customers get priority access, extended sessions, and improved graphics. So why on earth would anyone want to use GeForce Now? Well, it lets gamers who don’t own gaming PCs play PC games on any device. That is, you could purchase a game from Steam on a lowly laptop and then stream it using the power of NVIDIA’s back-end cloud services. This makes GeForce Now a bit ponderous, I guess, but it also opens up PC gaming to far more device types and users.

Xbox Cloud Gaming

Cost per month: $14.99
Plays on: Android
Native controller available: Yes
Works with Xbox Wireless Controller/PlayStation Dual-Shock: Xbox only
Free games provided with paid subscription: Yes (via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate)
Massive game library as part of subscription: Yes
Provides discounts on paid games: Yes

Though still limited from a client support perspective—only Android devices work currently—Xbox Cloud Gaming is, to me at least, the most interesting of these options because of its huge, high-quality library and its ties to the Xbox ecosystem. That is, you can mix and match between clients, playing a game locally on your Xbox console and then picking up the action later, via streaming, on your Android handset or tablet (and, soon, presumably, other clients). Cloud Gaming is a key component of Microsoft’s strategy to make games available to its customers from anywhere, but it’s not a standalone service, and it’s only available via the relatively expensive Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, which could limit its appeal.

I’ll be diving into the first of these services—probably NVIDIA GeForce Now—soon.