It took a while, but Xbox’s xCloud streaming service has hit Australia today in its preview phase. It’s only available to those that have Android devices *cries in iPhone* and so far, the first impressions are really positive. If you haven’t already registered, you can do so here.
As a reminder, this is streaming from the cloud (rather than a console) and at launch, there’s 25 games that you can play including heavy hitters such as Halo: Master Chief Collection and Forza Horizon 4.
Our very own Ewan Roxburgh said whilst playing Forza Horizon 4 “Wow, this is impressive. There’s definitely some noticeable input lag, but it’s still very playable”.
Another said: “Just got my invite to game streaming. Pretty good so far. Seamlessly picking up from my MCC save that I was playing on my Series X last night.”
On Twitter, Aussie journos and gamers were eagerly testing the first cloud gaming service to hit Australia with fairly positive results.
I just tried out the @XboxANZ project xCloud preview and I've gotta say, not bad at all. pic.twitter.com/LT8JaIhHXV
— Dick Kickem (@Hope_Corrigan) November 18, 2020
alright so xcloud game streaming works brilliantly so far on 5G in melbourne! pic.twitter.com/B7sbqbgUdt
— Kieron Verbrugge (@hash_braun) November 18, 2020
Thanks for allowing me to be part of the xCloud Preview in Australia @XboxANZ
Already tried HellBlade on my Note10+ looks just as good as it does on my 4K TV at home. pic.twitter.com/bL6uAusJ0A— Dale Brown ?? (@DaleBrown98) November 18, 2020
Obviously, performance is going to differ based on your connection type, but so far, it seems positive. I had completely forgotten about the fact that you’d be able to continue your game thanks to Xbox’s great cloud save implementation. That’s a complete gamechanger.
It’ll be interesting to watch xCloud grow over time, and see how it changes and improves over the preview phase and beyond.
