Microsoft’s Cloud Gaming service, popularly known as xCloud among tech enthusiasts, has gone live today with more power and wider support. If you subscribe to the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate plan, you can now access all of your games on a Windows PC as well as your Apple iPad, or iPhone, or Mac. Basically, Xbox Could Gaming on a web browser goes live, which enhances a wider reach for the service.
The Xbox Cloud Gaming service is officially supported on the Edge browser and Google Chrome. Hence, whether you use a Windows 10 PC or a macOS device, you can access your Xbox games by logging onto xbox.com/play. On iOS devices, the service runs as a web-based app via the Safari browser.
Xbox Cloud Gaming on Apple devices
PC users can go on with their gaming on the move if they possess the Xbox Wireless Controller. However, Microsoft is also letting users plug in their wired controllers of any build on their PC to get gaming. iOS users have the option to choose either the wireless controllers or rely on the touch controls, provided the game supports it.
(Representational Photo: Xbox Series X )
Microsoft says that it has also upgraded its data centers to the Xbox Series X standards, which means players can get to experience even better graphics quality than before. Players can stream their game in 1080p resolution at 60 fps as of now. It remains to be seen if Microsoft can make it possible to stream games in 4K resolution, given that Series X can do that easily.
However, there is one massive caveat to all these – supported countries. At the moment, Cloud Gaming is only supported in 22 countries around the world. Countries like India are left out of the list, which means you can’t access the service despite having a subscription to the Game Pass. This magnifies the issue of availability of the Xbox consoles in the subcontinent. The Xbox Series X and Series S consoles are difficult to obtain in India.
Microsoft says that more countries will get support for Xbox Cloud Gaming in the months to come. The Game Pass subscription is what generated a lot of interest in the Xbox ecosystem. Leaks have suggested that Microsoft is planning to sell dongles that bring Cloud Gaming to Smart TVs and other devices in the future.
