Microsoft announces an Xbox TV app and xCloud streaming stick

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All part of its mission to "bring the joy and community of gaming to everyone on the planet."

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Read more.

They just have to do better than Stadia :P

It's taken them a while, but finally Microsoft are about to offer game-streaming to something other than Android handsets.

Cool that they're now also on the verge of deploying the next-gen server blades - these have chipsets based on the latest XBox consoles - and could be the closest many of us will get to any next-gen hardware for a while.

If Microsoft can actually use their position in the market to do what stadia for some reason didn't: create high resolution low latency game streaming, then they could be on to a real winner here.

Ngl, I love having my PC, but man, this is good for all of us that game, more money, more ISPs, more people in online servers, exciting times!

I wonder how the environmental impact of streaming vs downloading vs physical copy stacks up? I guess the last two aren't a good comparison for games due to the number of patches, but how many times do you have to listen to a CD/vinyl before it's better for the environment than streaming? And how does a little stick, data centre plus all the bandwidth compare to a console in your living room?

Microsoft yet again moving forward, whilst Google goes backwards. Really putting the pressure on them.

This is also possibly the closest they have ever came to seriously challenging Valve/Steam.

Well I wasn't expecting this quite so soon but after the announcement about stadia on the 8th I said I was expecting a tv with xcloud and controller support built in.

It makes sense imo because at the end of the day it's basically just a 'viewport' with all the hardware being hosted remotely and in all honesty Sony (lets be honest Stadia isn't a competitor to Xbox) doesn't have anything that can compete.

Curious about the cost of the streaming stick though....

But everyone with a little sense, would buy a Playstation 5 instead, just saying.

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Originally Posted by QuorTek

But everyone with a little sense, would buy a Playstation 5 instead, just saying.

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This is no place to be bringing trash-talk that helps perpetuate the console wars... anyhow Call of Duty Black Ops 27 plays best on a beefy PC. Phahahah.

Hmmm.

Well, streaming? Not really for me.

Some music streaming? Okay. I use Amazon at the moment. But TBH, digitising my own owned media onto a media server and running it entirely in-house appeals more. I'm not really into much music later than about early 1980s, and a lot of what I listen to is pre-20th century (i.e. classical). And mostly, in both cases, if I want it I already have it. I'm happy to buy the occasional new disk, and Amazon streaming, until a media server was ready to go, appealed but it won't for much longer.

Video streaming? Not really. Again, I have a LOT on physical media already and for the odd new film/TV series, I'd rather just buy the discs. If I can't, oh well, I'll do wihout it then.

Game streaming? For me, just not going to happen. If I can't buy the game and use it when/where it suits me, without streaming or subscriptions (free or otherwise) I ain't doing it. Steam? It's no secret I never have, and never will, and there's zero chance of me using MS game streaming either. I'd rather not game at all.

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Originally Posted by QuorTek

But everyone with a little sense, would buy a Playstation 5 instead, just saying.

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Maybe it's me but in their current iterations I'd actually pick (I wouldn't actually but hypothetically) xbox series x over playstation 5 and the reason for that is games (more I like on xbox) and the actual console.

The sony is, relatively speaking, huge (wouldn't fit in my media unit) and also pretty ugly imo.