While game streaming isn’t a new thing, it seems we are entering a world where the technology is advanced enough, with more big companies willing to push behind that, that it’s going to be a big part of the future of the industry. We’re seeing that with the likes of Stadia and xCloud, two new services that are pushing that tech to the forefront. What’s always interesting about new technology is how it can often be used in ways not necessarily expected.
In an interview with GamesIndustry, Kareem Choudhry, Corporate Vice President of Gaming Cloud at Microsoft, talked about something unexpected that happened in beta testing for xCloud. People ended up using the service akin to old school couch co-op, even with games that never supported or were intended to be played that way.
“Sea of Thieves doesn’t support couch co-op. People in the programme are using Project xCloud to create a couch co-op experience. When I’m playing at home, one of my kids is playing on Xbox One X, another is on my Surface Book 2 and I’m sat right next to them on Project xCloud. We’re all in the same room playing together. A good percentage of the love notes we’ve received have been about someone else in the household monopolising a TV yet they can now still play.”
It’s very interesting to think about how game streaming can be utilized in a manner like that. It’s certainly a brand new world coming up, and it’ll always be interesting to see what kind of new and unexpected usages emerge.