r/gaming • u/Force_Hammer • 17h ago

Microsoft to impose time limits on Xbox cloud gaming subscribers as costs continue to climb

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/03/microsoft-xbox-game-pass-cloud-limits.html
11.2k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

6.3k

u/bgomes10 17h ago

"Why don't people like cloud gaming?"

Someone everytime a new cloud gaming service started.

1.8k

u/VV1NST0N 17h ago

Every cloud gaming service I have used won't work for me. The input latency is too high even on a fiber connection.

803

u/rand0mtaskk 16h ago

This has been my experience too. It’s just a terrible experience on nearly all games.

292

u/Maxcharged 16h ago

The lagging does look really funny though, because it will fast forward through whatever happened while you were lagging to catch back up.

NHL started looking like a Benny Hill chase scene. And the commentators sounded like chipmunks.

13

u/gaffythegrey 15h ago

It used to just screen tear, then skip ahead when that happened to me. Granted, I dropped Xbox back when they hiked prices, so I'm not sure if something has changed.

7

u/Gandolfthewhite182 14h ago

I didn’t even have this problem on steamdeck. It worked nearly perfectly but I cancelled when they raised the price 35% . So I haven’t used it in awhile.

5

u/gaffythegrey 11h ago

Wizards think alike, I guess.

0

u/SomewhereLatter4337 12h ago

Pretty sure the poster is thinking of online gaming because it definitely has never did this catch up thing for me. Maybe he has really bad internet or something though.

2

u/Imaginary-Plate1732 13h ago

🤣🤣🤣🤣 you must be old as hell. Just like me

24

u/EdgeBandanna 14h ago

This is what I've been saying about cloud gaming forever. Even if the latency is somehow cleaned up, it will only work for people on top end connections, ultimately limiting how mich of an impact it will have in the space.

6

u/rand0mtaskk 13h ago

Yeah I mean I’m on gigabit and it’s shit still. 🤷🏻‍♂️

1

u/huntingwhale 6h ago

Yup, I pretty much only use it for turn based rpgs.

3

u/Shadowrak 4h ago

There is a limiting factor called the speed of light. You can try to hide latency when you are there, but nothing beats shorter distance information travels.

0

u/hogswristwatch 2h ago

I play constantly on weak hotel WiFi or phones 5g. Works great.

4

u/jessicaax6 15h ago

classics like Stronghold Crusader were always playable for me and I dont even have fiber. but anything above that has been miserable yes

3

u/Noselessmonk 11h ago

You have to literally be in the same city to have reasonable latency for streaming a game. And even then, some games you will still feel it(FPS games must be awful over streaming).

1

u/LooneyWabbit1 5h ago

Fps games aren't playable even over local fully wired streaming lol. I tried. It's nauseating having the mouse lag behind even the tiniest amount.

I ended up just running a 10m HDMI cable...

2

u/alphazero925 14h ago

It was great for playing Fable 2 without needing to buy a 360 and a disc copy, but I can't imagine trying to use it for anything less casual than that

3

u/rand0mtaskk 14h ago

I tried to play a couple different games, newer and older, but couldn’t get anything to feel good. Some were definitely better than others, but I just got tired of dealing with it.

Only reason I keep ultimate now is because my kids play on our Xbox one while I’m on PC.

2

u/Archkingz 11h ago edited 6h ago

I was gonna say something like this. Its been pretty bad for me on all games i tried, except for Crusader Kings 3. But its easy to see how that title gets by with it.

3

u/rand0mtaskk 11h ago

Yeah any kind of turn based would be fine I’m sure. Anything with action though wasn’t great.

1

u/SippinOnHatorade 9h ago

Turn-based is the only use-case and even then it’s sub optimal

1

u/Incorect_Speling 3h ago

It's probably fine for games like slay the spire etc. Which need a potato to run and you could play natively on your phone.

I cannot understand the appeal of cloud gaming if they can't fix the latency issue (and I'm not sure that's realistic if even fiber isn't cutting it), even the occasional gamer wouldn't want terrible input lag, or being limited to 15h/month

-2

u/EnronCPA 14h ago

Been using GFN for 3 years and it works flawlessly. 15ms ping

6

u/rand0mtaskk 13h ago

Ok. 👍🏻

-3

u/EnronCPA 13h ago

Ok 👌

-9

u/avelineaurora 15h ago

I have had 0 issues playing FPSes lag free on Geforce Now, I have no idea what y'all's problem is.

13

u/Avalarr 15h ago

Even if this wasn't a bot comment, not noticing the additional latency of STREAMED gaming in an FPS title is certainly bot behavior.

-7

u/avelineaurora 14h ago

Why the fuck do you think I'm a bot lmao. Clown-ass response.

I don't know what to tell you. I'm by no means a competitive player so yeah if you're sweaty you'd probably notice. But I have no issue playing at my moderately-not-terrible skill level on cloud gaming. No one's seemingly shooting me from out of nowhere, no one's rubber banding, bullets hit where it looks like they're supposed to hit. I don't really have any issue with action games either, though obviously that requires less than an FPS.

FWIW, this is a test to GFN servers right now, so it's pretty negligible even when combined with the additional latency from them to whatever game.

3

u/rand0mtaskk 14h ago

Ok. 👍🏻

146

u/Fluffy_Charity_2732 16h ago

Which is funny because streaming direct from my own pc via steam link is 50x less latency than cloud dogshit. And that’s when I’m on the road via WiFi. And tried all the premium cloud providers from my fiber at home 

Cloud gaming is bullshit on purpose. They want to see how shit they can keep the service in order to make it “better” when they need to look like they are improving it

Anyone using cloud gaming right now is dumber than shit

44

u/082426grateful 15h ago

I remember when publicly traded firms could just say the word “cloud” and their stock price would surge.

36

u/REDDITATO_ 13h ago

See "AI" now. Round and round we go.

5

u/ThatOneComrade 11h ago

Can the next investor buzzword come around and pop the bubble please.

3

u/vkevlar 13h ago

they're trying to replace that with "AI", it doesn't seem to be having the same effect, fortunately

1

u/EmmatheBest 12h ago

No, I don't...because Square Enix's stock has kinda not been doing anything for awhile. :p

1

u/flyinhighaskmeY 10h ago

lol...that isn't how it works. publicly traded firms don't control their stock price. Wall St. actors do.

The price isn't surging because they said "cloud". That's just how its being explained to people who don't understand how the market works. Its the same with Ai. Those prices are moving where they are because someone needs them to move where they are. The news stories are just bullshit cover.

38

u/yung_dogie 16h ago

Yeah streaming from my home PC via Sunshine/Moonlight or Steam Link is noticeable but far more playable than when I tried a friend's cloud gaming subscription on his home internet connection. Plus when I do personal streaming I'm usually on phone hotspot -> laptop (of course stability of the connection was an issue but that undoubtedly would've been the case with the same setup for cloud gaming services)

2

u/waddlesticks PC 12h ago

I have the opposite problem.

Steam link is absolutely trash for me even locally, whilst sunshine/moonlight combo or cloud gaming in gamepass is low latency without hiccups.

I had to change ISP provider though for gamepass cloud to have good latency though.

2

u/Rhysati 12h ago

I have the exact same experience. Cloud gaming is laggy, input is delayed, and you get kicked if you idle for like 5 mins.

But I stream from my PC to my friends place via WiFi connected to my handheld and I can play Spider-Man. It feels like I'm actually at my PC.

7

u/vinyljunkie1245 15h ago

I guess I'm dumber than shit then because I used it all the time and I have no issues whatsoever with latency or lag. I can't tell the difference between playing in the cloud via gamepass and the game installed on my Xbox. I have a fibre connection though.

It saves me having to move games back and forth from internal and external storage if I feel like playing something different now games are so big storage wise and MS giving such small internal storage.

I know I don't own those games but I'm fine with that. I buy the games I want but at the moment the ones I want are on Gamepass and I don't pay for that as I get it through Microsoft Rewards by getting gift cards. I easily have enough to keep the top tier free. I've only paid for about 6 months of Gamepass since it started.

3

u/JuanRunJunior 14h ago

It’s amazing how easily people can call someone stupid as shit for having a different opinion isn’t it? I have the same experience streaming PC games so I must be dumb as shit too.

My favorite part with these people? “hAvE FUN NoT OwNiNg yOuR GaMes” they’ll say, while playing on Steam, a digital storefront, that doesn’t sell physical copies, that allows third party launchers so your games require them, and then they’ll start insulting you. I have paid games on Steam that don’t work if the launcher encounters an error, and I’m sure they do too, but we are the dumb people in their eyes. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

2

u/the_original_kermit 14h ago

Anyone that equates physical games with ownership basically gets a downvote for me.

It was never ownership. It’s always been a license, and I don’t expect a future where it isn’t that way.

1

u/[deleted] 14h ago

[deleted]

1

u/MaltySines 14h ago

30fps has been standard on console for most games a decade. Yeah it's not gonna be enough for the hardcore, but most of the gaming audience is fine with it like how most people don't care that 24fps isn't the optimal movie framerate. It just feels natural because it's been standard for so long

4

u/exposarts 15h ago

are the people that use cloud gaming cause they can't afford a high end gaming pc also dumb? Not every country is considered a first world country

0

u/zgillet 14h ago

Those third-world countries are getting fiber now?

-6

u/Brad1895 14h ago edited 13h ago

It's almost* the worst option of all. Period

You pay a subscription for access to a gaming system you have zero control over. If Microsoft decides the business model isn't profitable after a few years, you're out of luck.

You need solid internet and to be close to the data center running that machine. If you don't, you're going to have a really bad time trying to play anything but minesweeper.

You don't need a high end gaming PC. You don't even need a midrange pc. The number of games you can play on an old PC or a build from mid 2010's hardware will last you a long, long time. The price of those parts are going to be cheaper than the cost of a subscription, and you get to actually own the hardware.

  • The only reason I can see someone doing this is if they want to try the hobby before dropping hundreds (or sometimes) thousands on a setup.

1

u/the_original_kermit 13h ago

Your last sentence basically explains it and contradicts your first.

If you had $100 to spend for the rest of the year, you’re going to be better off with cloud gaming.

I don’t like it, and I would never do it. But it’s somewhat ignorant to ignore that if you consider cost per hour of gaming, it’s near the top of the charts in the low hours range.

→ More replies (2)

1

u/exposarts 12h ago

You cannot play games like cyberpunk 2077 with path tracing or rtx on an old pc lol.. at least with good performance. But like I said, based on where you live, affording a high end pc isn't so easy. Ethernet is very cheap, but what does matter is whether you are close to a data center as that dictates your latency. Some get to have 5-15ms latency which is decent/good, others have to deal with 60ms+ latency because they are far from a data server which is unplayable. So when it comes down to some casual gamers who cannot afford a high end setup, they would rather pay the $10-20 fee to play single player games with maxed out graphics and 120 fps on the higher tier and have a good experience assuming they use ethernet and are close to a data server.... That is a far better bargain for most adults than say netflix/spotify subscriptions, it costs almost nothing and they get a lot in return.. But if you can afford a high end pc setup, that will ofc always be better as you get mod support for all games, no limitations to library, no time limits, and native latency is always better as we all know

1

u/GPTforGood 12h ago

Literally nobody was claiming you could run cyberpunk with raytracing on an old PC lol you're arguing with clouds.

→ More replies (1)

1

u/Brad1895 11h ago

At no point did I suggest playing cyberpunk with raytracing of all things. You even made two huge assumptions, being physically close to the site and having low latency internet on top of that. Those two were part of my original argument. Not everyone heck, most users will not fall into those categories.

I hate to use the term "living within your means," but something similar applies here. There are tons of games that have come out over the years that can run on just about anything. You do not need a top of the line pc to enjoy the hobby unless you're trying to push the settings to max on every new release. Many of us are more than happy to enjoy the lifetime of content already out there.

1

u/exposarts 5h ago

"being physically close to the site and having low latency internet on top of that" I did not say those were requirements, more so that is what you need for a great/close to nativelike experience.. I'm sure people in non first world countries wouldn't mind playing modern games with great graphics/performance with around 50ms or even more. Now if you are playing a competitive fps game, that would be unplayable ofc..

You do absolutely need a decent pc(at least $1500) to enjoy most modern titles at decent frame rates, because many devs apparently think that optimization shouldn't be a priority.. Think the new monster hunter title, stalker 2, dragons dogma 2, etc. But of course, there are many older games that aren't as demanding, in that case a low-mid end pc will work decently. I'm mostly talking about gfnow or boosteroid, people are willing to pay $10-20 for these services to play modern games with good performance, that don't run well on their current machines and aren't able to afford a good rig.

→ More replies (2)

2

u/JuanRunJunior 14h ago

I’ve been using GeForce now on my Mac mini for a few months with no perceptible lag on a fiber connection. I’m not great at BF6 and I have no idea what you’re talking about. It works perfectly fine on every game in multiple genres I’ve tried. Maybe Xbox cloud sucks, but the blanket statement that it’s dogshit, shit service and doesn’t work isn’t incorrect. I won’t be using it for long, once I tire of BF6, but saying PC cloud gaming is dogshit isn’t even remotely true.

1

u/puffbro 6h ago

Yea a lot of people didn’t realise bandwidth is only part of the story, server’s location matters a lot more on what latency one would get from streaming.

1

u/Smokester121 15h ago

I gotta make sure I can do it on the road. Gotta set it up.

1

u/RetPala 12h ago

There is no "better" or "improving it"

This is a race to the bottom. The end game of a business is just fanning out on the streets to lasso "customers" to convert their biomass into fuel like some Mad Max/Matrix combo

1

u/GlastoKhole 11h ago

I have a gigabit internet connection. I download 25gb games in a handful of minutes at most. Even with everyone on my network in the family when I check I’m pulling in no less than 600mb a second at peak times. Yet when I loaded cloud gaming on my Xbox last week the menu for the game was lagging hard and looked like it was 480p. I gave it a few minutes and loaded the first mission up and just noped out. Why the fuck are they pushing this shite? Nobody and I mean nobody will use it except maybe the odd boomer. people who game typically have a hard on for high fidelity or super fast response times down to milliseconds. It’s half the reason people push for like 120 frames. But this shit. Nobody will get behind it

1

u/LooneyWabbit1 5h ago

I agree with everything you said except one.

"Nobody will use it except the odd boomer"

Nah. Tons of people are completely blind and disconnected from their hands. Look at all the pushback every time a game releases with shit optimisation. People will be running 78 fps at 4x frame gen upscaled from 480p and claim the game looks and runs great.

People are already running around with 60ms additional input lag playing locally and apparently seem to have no idea. Tons of morons jumped to use and defend Stadia when that was a thing. This'll probably go over just fine tbh 😔

1

u/ennuiinmotion 10h ago

It's all a race to see how cheap you can provide a product or service and still keep customers. Making things better is never in the calculations.

1

u/Mofaklar 9h ago

Yeah, I dont think its necessarily latency. As in, network specific lag. It should be possible to keep this to about +20ms Which shouldn't really cause to much of an issue.

I think they are screwing people with hardware allocations/platform.

1

u/Trrollmann 4h ago

On purpose? I finished Halo Infinite on highest difficulty on cloud gaming. Latency was an issue, annoying for sure, but not bad enough that I'd buy the game.

1

u/hogswristwatch 2h ago

Huh, works great for me. You sound fat.

1

u/MaltySines 14h ago

The latency is fine in good network conditions if you're close to the server. I can beat Doom Eternal on ultra violence and it doesn't feel any worse than console. It's not like a high end pc but for people used to console it's gonna be fine (again if you're lucky enough to be closer to a server)

0

u/9966 14h ago

Stadia worked great. Very low lag, instant boot. Shame it died.

-14

u/Admirable_Zombie5245 16h ago

I have access to a cloud 5080 and use it to play on my OLED TV at 4k 120fps with ULTRA RTX setting, it’s amazing for just $20/mo

Feels native, no latency. But hey keep enjoying your probably 4060ti card

3

u/LR0989 16h ago

Enjoy no mods, a fraction of the games, and no ownership? Lmao and just wait til the time limits / price increases start rolling in

1

u/Narfi1 16h ago

I haven’t used it in over a decade but Shadow PC just gives you a windows desktop, you can do anything you’d do on your own windows PC

3

u/ubelgooble 16h ago

name checks out.

1

u/Fluffy_Charity_2732 15h ago

Don’t need all that for your Roblox, kid. Your mom know you use her card?

-1

u/Long-Broccoli-3363 13h ago

My kid's dad is a technology mennonite, uses a flip phone, minimal stuff etc because of his religion.

I got him a logitech gcloud, and set up tailscale on it back to our house, apollo/artemis, and boom, he can play like he's at home, he cant even notice the difference.

12

u/HuntingForSanity 16h ago

That’s interesting to me. I do not have fiber, and use GeForce now to play certain games that my laptop absolutely cannot handle.

And it feels just like playing native to me. Unless something is going on with my internet that day.

Gamepass streaming sucks in comparison though. That is laggy as all hell.

2

u/DeathCab4Cutie 12h ago

I see so many conflicting reports, and I don’t know who to believe. Is it varied setups creating different results, or just people’s subjective opinions differing from one person to another? Maybe “feels like native” to you wouldn’t feel the same to someone else, or maybe the network connection you have is just more reliable/low latency than some with fiber. Guess I have to demo it at some point to know for sure. Sunshine/Moonlight on my home network feels a bit behind, but it’s hardly noticeable in casual games. I wonder how different it would be for cloud.

2

u/iMedium 11h ago

Linus did testing on it and it's fairly close. It works well for harder to run single player games. Results obviously vary not only based on speed, but your proximity to their servers, proximity to your local node, etc.

2

u/DoubleBassPlease 9h ago

It's $10.

I played Destiny 2 on airport wireless at over 60fps. I couldn't sense input lag. I'm no "competitive gamer" but I know what input lag feels like.

It's my go-to service for gaming on travel on my Steam Deck.

Only real negative is giving money to NVIDIA.

1

u/MagentaHawk 5h ago

I can actually mention this in a few settings. I've played it on 3 computers (1 good desktop, 1 old desktop, 1 2020 chromebook) on direct fiber and wifi both in Oregon and Idaho.

For the vast majority of the time it felt native to me, honestly. There were times of frustrating latency, but those would only occur when the internet was being interrupted to a point that it wouldn't be able to consistently stream 1080P on Youtube. 95% of the time it has felt native.

Very helpful in delaying an upgrade to my system. I mostly play indie games it my computers are fine, but newer stuff like Zcom? My GPU literally can't even speak the right language, let alone have the hardware. $10 let's me play some fancy new games on my shitty card.

-1

u/NutSlapper69 12h ago

The only people claiming it “feels like native” either do not have or have never played on good hardware and/or they are not very competitive and cannot feel significant input lag.

Cloud gaming will NEVER be useful for competitive shooters, racing games, precision platformers, or any other type of game where response time is important.

1

u/iMedium 11h ago

It's fairly close, and for gpu intensive single player games it's a good solution for now while prices are decent.

I'd argue the people considering cloud gaming aren't exactly the audience who need 20 less ms in competitive shooters anyway lol.

2

u/NutSlapper69 11h ago

20ms is would already be a big enough disadvantage, but I also think that number is too low for the reality of cloud gaming. Obviously going to vary from service to service, and isp to isp, but in my experience it has been around 70-200ms of extra delay.

You are right about the type of people that would use it though… although I don’t like competitive shooters, but there is not a singular game I can think of where it would be worth playing on cloud gaming personally.

0

u/[deleted] 11h ago

[deleted]

0

u/iMedium 11h ago

Linus did testing on it, you're just wrong, but that's okay.

1

u/Forsaken-Factor-489 8h ago

Played a MOBA on GFN years ago at a higher level than you're capable of. Lol

1

u/NutSlapper69 6h ago edited 6h ago

Now I know you’re making stuff up.

13

u/Defiant_Restaurant61 16h ago

Might depend on where you live, I use Shadow PC in western Europe and don't get any noticeable input latency but I used to have it with GeForce Now and Boosteroid before I switched. 

I have fiber + a wired internet connection to my computer though, otherwise I'll get the occasionnal lag spike.

2

u/FalloutOW 15h ago

Luna has been surprisingly good in my experience. Even playing a racing game, some motorcycle one, felt pretty good. I'm terrible at it, but I'm sure th input lag wasn't to fault there.

Works good as a way for my daughter (5) to play the Bluey game on our Fire TV. Just BT a controller up to the TV and you're good to go.

But yea, time limits and input lag would ruin that shit in a heartbeat.

2

u/Fat_cat_syndicate 15h ago

Have you considered moving closer to US-East-1?

1

u/freedombuckO5 15h ago

The latency will never be better for cloud gaming because it takes time for the electrons carrying the data to physically travel to your computer from wherever the server is.

1

u/Mccobsta 15h ago

I've tried a few and the xcloud around it's global launch was the best like genuinely felt like it was running on my phone

Tried a while ago now and yeah it's rough now

1

u/FantasySuperhero000 15h ago

PlayStation Now always had buggy controls. Google Stadia had pixelated graphics. I prefer local gaming.

1

u/CaterpillarReal7583 15h ago

Any reaction based game is a nightmare.

1

u/GeorgeKaplanIsReal 15h ago

Yeah. I’ve had ok experiences with it but when it gets shitty, it gets really shitty lol

1

u/reluctant_return 15h ago

Stadia was good if you used the 120fps mode. I played Destiny 2 via Stadia with a mouse and keyboard for tons of hours that way. The 60fps stream had very obvious latency for me, but the 120fps was good enough I didn't notice any.

1

u/ObeseVegetable 15h ago

For me the latency is fine but the video gets me. 

It’s almost always that 720p minimum settings upscaled to 1080p with a ton of artifact bullshit 

1

u/einzweidreihorn 15h ago

Never had any issue without fiber.

1

u/ockhams-lightsaber 15h ago

I’m satisfied with the cloud gaming (more like cloud computing) service I have but I’m only using it because my computer can’t play games. 

Big companies like Microsoft and Nvidia are squeezing every single penny out of everyone because of “rising costs”. YOU are the one rising the costs dumb asses. Who are building new data centers every month ? 

1

u/Kup123 15h ago

I remember when gamers didn't want to use wireless controllers do to slight input delays a human couldn't notice. They are never going to happy with cloud gaming, it just can't be fast enough.

1

u/Narrow_Reading_7724 15h ago

Works fine for me. Recently completed Campaign Evolved on the Steam Deck via Cloud but a MS Data Centre is only 15 miles from me so that might explain the good performance

1

u/blackop 15h ago

Yeah I think the only game I have ever enjoyed while cloud gaming was slay the spire.

1

u/devedander 15h ago

That’s my thing… we literally have gaming mode on TVs to get rid of 10-20 ms.

Encoding decoding and travel time is hard pressed to not be at least that bad.

1

u/Adezar 15h ago

I don't even use a wireless mouse/keyboard because they have too much latency for gaming.

Speed of electricity + distance + routing/switching means there are limits to how low you can get the latency. All the bandwidth in the world doesn't help if you are just trying to send tiny bits of data (key presses/mouse movements) constantly.

1

u/iMedium 11h ago

Wireless mice have matched or exceeded wired, I don't see the point in wireless keyboard but you're missing out on wireless mice.

1

u/avelineaurora 15h ago

Sounds like a personal problem. I have a GFN sub and even on a 200/20 line I had 0 issues playing even latency important games like Destiny and The Finals.

1

u/WackyRacketeer 15h ago

Could it be server based? I have mediocre internet and have no problems with it.

1

u/GeraldoOfCanada 15h ago

Turn based games and stuff work good enough which is all I ever use it for

1

u/radicldreamer 15h ago

I bought the steam streaming device a while back, the latency even on my LAN was annoying. It sounded cool in theory, I could stream my game library to my house or the world, but reality set it and any games that require even relatively precise input were trash on it. It may have worked for something like Sim city or some other point and click game but it just can't do what it needs to do, and that's not lag.

1

u/leonredhorse 14h ago

What's funny is I have a Founder's subscription for NVIDIA GeForce Now, so I was trying it on Linux and the input latency was really, really bad trying to play an FPS. Basically unplayable in any real sense. So I tried upgrading to their Ultimate just to see if anything was different since you get a few more options... and suddenly it was playable. It is still worse than local machine, but I played the MW4 Beta on it and was extremely competitive. Sometimes if I don't feel like swapping over on my dual boot, I'll play BF6 on it.

Wild how your input latency and experience changes between tiers. Not to mention the ultimate tier is stupidly expensive. I don't plan to keep it, but it was worth a test to see what was possible. But if I need to own the game anyways, it would just be better to swap to my Windows partition if the game doesn't work in Linux.

1

u/ToMorrowsEnd 14h ago

And where it makes sense when traveling, its utterly useless. WOuld love to do cloud Xbox while at airports or in the hotel. Oh wait those places intentionally have the worst internet possible.

1

u/Capable_Swordfish701 14h ago

I tried playing heavenly sword on a psnow trial when it first came out. The game has a lot of quick time events, I’d hit the buttons as soon as they came on screen, but with the latency it was too late. Tried to memorize the sequences so I could try to hit them before they came on screen so it would count. But that sucked so I just stopped playing.

1

u/Susurrus03 14h ago edited 14h ago

I've had good experiences with Luna.

I don't pay for Luna specifically, but there's a decent amount playable games for people who have Prime subscriptions.

Xbox isn't terrible either but a bit grainy. It's nice they let you stream with an Essential membership.

Never used PlayStation's streaming because I don't pay for Premium. I have remote played using my Portal with success though. I have a buddy that streams games a lot including when we play Co-op online and he seems to like it, though.

The Cloud Version Switch games (I only did demos) are terrible.

Of course being on fiber as well, I'll just download the game in a few minutes and it doesn't really matter.

1

u/Tall_Opportunity_521 14h ago

It really only works if you live in silicon valley, and have a 50TB organic brain connection between your home and the data centre.

1

u/fallouthirteen 14h ago

Yeah, like already it sucked when I tried it. Now you just are only able to play less of that sucky experience. Already had no interest in using it more (and often forget it's a thing).

1

u/goober-actual 14h ago

speed of light is only so fast

1

u/jawisko 14h ago

It recently started in my city so I gave it a try. The latency was pretty good in my experience. Completed all 5 gears of war with my brother in online Co op

1

u/yeezusbro 14h ago

Google Stadia was awesome

1

u/Zalvren 14h ago

Yeah I have 2 to 8 Gbps fiber connection, Wifi on the mobile reach 1-1.5 Gbps easily and good ping in every game and it's still super shit. Either they are cheapening on where they put the servers for it or the tech really sucks (only ever tried Xbox Cloud Gaming to be fair, maybe it's just them who sucks)

1

u/fedexpoopracer 14h ago

who knew that a gaming product whose whole bottleneck is solely dependent on your internet connection would be total shit?

i can't believe they even invented this

1

u/Soulsheartless 13h ago

It’s never been a good experience. I’m not sure who ever thought it was a good idea.

1

u/Chevy8t8 13h ago

Ps now works surprisingly well for me, but I agree. Streaming services prioritize the visual fidelity instead of the streaming connection, which makes no sense to me.

I will gladly play a lower resolution game in exchange for higher frame rate and reduced latency.

1

u/Ws6fiend 13h ago

It heavily depends on what you play.

On cloud trying to play any kind of shooter or game that requires quick timing and reflexes is bad because of the variability of the input lag.

For something like a turn based rpg latency doesn't matter. And this is the crux of the problem. Most gamers aren't playing the games which can deal with input lag easily.

Also if you are on fiber and cloud gaming isn't working well then your wifi network is congested, you have a router issue, or some other technical hurdle.

1

u/ToGrey2Care 13h ago

Sometimes this a device hardware issue. Or just the ingest you happen to connect to.

BT module or nec cards are not all created equal either are controllers. Theres so many variables. Sometimes its the software, os or firm are of device

Ive seen top end gaming motherboards with awful BT handling

That being said when cloud is good its good. personally xcloud had super low latency for me. But when its bad its bad.

1

u/Silent-Land1218 13h ago

Make sure your device has WiFi 5 or higher. I just bought a new tablet to play cloud gaming and it's way smoother and less latency than both my phone and laptop.

1

u/Trick-Routine-8577 13h ago

I played la noire using onlive and an Xperia play phone in 2011 and have been cloud gaming since then. Sometimes it's a little too laggy to play but 80 percent of the time, it's fine.

1

u/Harbinger2001 13h ago

Interesting. My son’s tv has Xbox cloud and I was able to run Doom: Eternal with no noticeable input lag.

1

u/UpDownLeftRightGay 12h ago

Eh, GeForce Now is like 20-30ms or so. Not something your average player is ever going to notice. You don't need particularly good internet and even wifi is perfectly playable.

1

u/QuickQuirk 12h ago

Yeah, you have to be geographically close to the datacenter to avoid the limits of physics.

Even on the relatively small scale of the US, practical best case round trip time from east to west coast is 60 or 70 milliseconds!

That's equivalent to 2 frames extra latency even at a really slow 30FPS.

So even in the US, if you're far from a local datacenter, it can be bad.

As soon as you're outside the US, in a country where there's no local datacenter, it gets worse.

Try cloud gaming from New Zealand, for example...

1

u/Kastar_Troy 12h ago

Until we have quantum entanglement networking(which probably wont work), it will never be good, fps lag with network lag must be the worst.

Imagine playing a survival game on cloud, so painful.

1

u/Lepelotonfromager 11h ago

Well yeah obviously. I've never understood the stupidity of people pushing this when was always going to be an issue.

1

u/Frequent_Opportunist 11h ago

Have you tried the Nvidia service? 

1

u/Ho3n3r 11h ago

Makes sense since the limiting factor will be latency, not speed (unless you have really bad internet).

1

u/Golden-trichomes 11h ago

I streamed over a cellular internet provider without any real issues but even at 30-45 minutes a day that I might play I’m over the 15 hour cap.

1

u/Dje4321 10h ago

Yep. You need fiber connection with an in-city DC to handle the games. Anything more and your hitting the point where latency is too great for direct feedback

1

u/BrandonUzumaki 10h ago

Yeah, that's the worst part for me, imagine having to worry about ping and latency in a single player game lmao.

1

u/teshh 10h ago

How is cloud gaming for single player games such as ck3, stellaris, etc. I imagine being able to offload the calculations would make the game run much smoother in late game.

1

u/Warmbly85 8h ago

Really? I’ve played a bunch of stuff that (mainly single player) and I haven’t experienced anything that bad yet. Granted I’ve only used it a couple dozen times over the last few years with free months included with other purchases.

I haven’t seen too much of an increase or decrease in quality from when they first released it to a month ago.

1

u/paulisaac 8h ago

Even the best input latency is still variable, which makes it a total no-go for Fortnite Festival (rhythm game)

1

u/Baial 5h ago

I find that's okay on turn based games.

1

u/Gemini-88 4h ago

Yep, it’ll work fine for a bit, but then it goes down hill. Disconnects, lag, you name it, it happens. It’s a gimmicky thing that they want to push, but any meaningful gaming on it is not feasible.

1

u/PercentageNo3293 1h ago

Not defending cloud gaming, for obvious reasons, but I bought my nephew a controller to use for Luna. I was surprised how well it worked. It's miles ahead of Stadia (my father purchased it for himself).

1

u/wwarhammer 16h ago

Stadia worked really well for me! The input lag wasn't noticeable during normal gameplay, only if you made quick movements on purpose, then you juuust noticed it. 

1

u/Scholar_Artistic 16h ago

Is this xbox or pc? Im on xbox, about 25mbps upload, play online games, hardly ever an issue

1

u/SPAKMITTEN 14h ago

Did you just type Fibre with a hard R

0

u/Googoo123450 16h ago

Yeah not to mention the very obvious compression artifacts. Sure the rig running the game is outputting 4K but you are absolutely not seeing 4K at home. It looks blurry and dull. It's bad enough that if in the future that's the only option then I'd rather just not play.

0

u/Dry_Conflict8519 16h ago

Even on the least demanding games. Like Balatro.

98

u/JoushMark 15h ago

Google spent a billion dollars learning there's no way to profitably make a cloud gaming system. Either the performance is bad enough nobody wants to pay for it, or the performance is good but it's so expensive nobody wants to pay for it, or the performance is good and the price is good but every customer you sign up cost you more money then they pay you.

28

u/NMe84 14h ago edited 11h ago

The only way game streaming is any good is if you do the streaming yourself. I stream from my PC to my TV using Sunshine and Moonlight and that works great, but I can't imagine for a second that I'd pay for that experience but with worse latency and the risk of games being taken from you at any moment.

6

u/Fuzzy-Function-3212 10h ago

Sunshine and Moonlight

Isn't that a Balance Druid spec?

2

u/PigDog4 11h ago

Two questions:

1) How annoying was getting sunshine and moonlight set up?

2) Have you tried externally from your network? If so, how was it?

I've done some light hosting and streaming when I'm traveling using previously Parsec and more recently Steam Link and they're both fine (steamlink is better, parsec was a little rough). Not looking to play anything fast twitch when traveling but it is nice to be able to game.

2

u/NMe84 11h ago

Installing Sunshine was pretty easy, it's just an installer and then a web interface, as the software itself is mostly just an API. And since I don't have a 16:9 @ 4K monitor (I have an ultrawide and a 1080p one instead) I set up a virtual monitor for Sunshine to use, so that I can stream 4K HDR content to my 4K HDR TV.

Moonlight required a bit more attention, most of which was because of my TV having a terrible ethernet adapter, meaning I didn't have enough bandwidth for 4K content until I switched to wifi (since it does have Wifi 6). Installing the app itself was easy enough though, my LG TV is easy to put into developer mode, and from there you can install Moonlight from the homebrew store.

I haven't tried it outside the house yet, but I'm on Gbit symmetrical fiber so it should be no problem to stream in great quality as long as the receiving internet connection is also decent. I imagine latency will be a bit more of an issue there, though. Though that's obviously less of a problem with particular games. I've been playing Baldur's Gate 3 recently and since that's turn based, the latency doesn't really matter.

1

u/evoc2911 5h ago

The only related Xbox streaming that works for me is greenlight to stream from my Xbox to the Steamdeck in the same room..

6

u/HulksInvinciblePants 11h ago edited 11h ago

Microsoft’s stated reason is still a problem though. Google was way too early to the scene. The tech today is finally refined enough to be “useable” but all the required expansion to support it has skyrocketed from a rounding error to a real expense.

Since I still believe it’s a compromised experience, even at its best, the faster it disappears the better.

3

u/JoushMark 10h ago

Matching the performance of a gaming PC in a VM on a server was never cheap and will never be cheap. The gamble is that most of the people that want this will use it to play Bejeweled and that you'd only have a few people trying to do your big advertised feature like playing Cyberpunk with ray tracing on.

But most people willing to pay for the service want to use the service. They want to play demanding games and that means it's expensive. More expensive then they are willing to pay for the service.

Stadia didn't fail in like, 1996, this shut down 3 years ago. The economics and technology haven't meaningfully moved. Microsoft adding 'pay-per-minute' to their streaming service is a desperate hail Mary to try to find some profitable way, and it's going to fail because nobody wants that.

1

u/HulksInvinciblePants 7h ago

The servers were rack mounted custom Xbox hardware if I recall.

1

u/JoushMark 5h ago

Kind of? It's a custom AMD chip and an intel processor, kind of like a RX Vega 56 and low end Kaby Lake processor. Xbox one X, if it had been born a little later. Nothing groundbreaking about the hardware, even at the time.

2

u/EnkiiMuto 7h ago

I can see services as Xbox pass or investing on tiny indies and a few big hits to be temporarily exclusive as a loss leader.

For the life of me I cannot see how streaming games with your own GPU and Network bill breaks it even, when streaming video is already very difficult to manage (with the exception of Youtube which is a data collection service disguised as a video streaming service).

Same with OpenAI decided to make their slop-tok, the first thought to mind was "...wait, Twitter was spending 1 billion a year trying to cover costs for short text, and you want to generate videos as a way to 'make money first'?"

It is a shame because Xbox did decide to make a competition with the Steam Deck but both are stuck right now because prices are so high... because of AI.

4

u/JuanRunJunior 14h ago

Google and offering services is an extremely low bar to viability. They’ve killed things that were working and maybe not the best in its niche without warning. I wouldn’t trust google services past Gmail, they will start something and then abandon it without warning. I would never judge the profitability of something based on their decisions.

9

u/JoushMark 14h ago

They spent a billion dollars on Stadia. They killed it because there was no way, even with the economies of scale google can leverage, to make money doing it.

Just because something works doesn't mean it scales or can be done profitably.

2

u/CGB_Zach 11h ago

They killed it because it never had the user base. They didn't advertise it so no one knew about it

2

u/LIGHTNINGBOLT23 5h ago

For Google, it's always about opportunity cost. Could they have made Stadia profitable? Yes. Was the capital necessary for Stadia better spent elsewhere regarding return on investment? Also yes. That's the reason why Google is known for killing services quickly.

3

u/JoushMark 5h ago

There's no indication Stadia had any path to profitability. They attempted for at least 7 years to make it work and in the end deiced killing it was the best thing they could do with their money, after attempting options like just selling the technology and service to other people to run their own streaming game services.

2

u/LIGHTNINGBOLT23 4h ago

Stadia as it existed had no path to profitability. Over nearly a whole decade, Google spent about a billion dollars on Stadia if you go by the highest estimates. That is practically nothing for Google, a rounding error at best. If they were serious about its potential, they would have dumped far more investment into it and gotten a path to profitability.

Stadia was a side project for Google and it failed because it got the little attention a side project often gets. Aside from that, Google also demands easy massively profitable wins for their smaller endeavors or else they bail out fast. There's irony in that, since Google's parent company is literally named Alphabet Inc. They're seeking huge alpha, they don't just want a profitable gig.

2

u/AdeptCapital148 13h ago

It really does seem like a tricky balance to strike. With so many challenges in the cloud gaming space, it’s no wonder Microsoft is looking for ways to curb costs.

1

u/Elum224 2h ago

This sounds made up. Scalable systems work people can have higher system specs because it's shared.

The performance sucks because of light speed. Online game performance will always be shit unless the server is really near your house.

1

u/JoushMark 2h ago

Google has amazing economies of scale, but they aren't unlimited. To get low latency high bandwidth streaming game services you have to put a bunch of server racks of high performance equipment near every large population you want to serve. That cost money. Enough money to make your service unattractive compared to just buying your own system and playing locally.

They did the math. The price the market will tolerate does not justify the cost of high performance streaming games. That's why Microsoft is switching to a 'pay-per-minute' scheme to discourage people from using it.

12

u/Muggsy423 16h ago

At least google refunded everyone for the money they spent on Stadia.   I still have the controller for that. 

6

u/SpookyGhostIsScary 13h ago

This data center focused economy all these tech bro execs have forced on us is failing and it’s enjoyable to watch.

You know for a fact they figured we would all be happy to move to a fucking trash subscription service. Fuck em

Enshitifcafion is booming. All of Microsoft’s products are worse than they were 10 years ago. Netflix is worse. PlayStation is worse. Google is worse. Facebook is worse. Movies are worse. Literally everything is shit and getting shittier.

9

u/EnvironmentalRun1671 16h ago

Don't worry you can pay for more hours

6

u/culby 16h ago

I've never felt more vindicated in my life.

3

u/Volarath 13h ago

And they keep pushing for it. Soon it'll be "why buy the 1600 PS6 when we have this nice low introductory rate on cloud gaming!" Just a matter of time before the torrent of emails about "in order to enhance your experience, cloud gaming is more expensive again!" I wish more people learned with disney+, gamepass, ect.

2

u/Particular_Wear_6960 13h ago

People were saying the same about Overwatch and the switch to the Season Pass model. I knew it was going to be shit and, 'lo and behold, it ends up shit and everyone pretends they were against it from the beginning. I get that's too different situations but it annoys me at how naive a lot of gamers are about the decisions companies make to squeeze every dollar out of their customers. Cloud gaming isn't meant to be a cheap alternative for people without the money for expensive computers, it's the equivalent to renting an apartment verses buying a house, you will absolutely pay more over time plus you lose a lot of control over your experience among other things

2

u/hometechfan 14h ago

The classic SAAS strategy. Start good, then enshitify. It makes sense, it's why I have the same reaction you do. Why do people ask that question. I think it comes down to denial. They think they getting a good deal. You build your library and then they have you; they think they do, anyway... As a group though gamers are highly resistant. It's one of the places left in the economy where we have option. Though we know they wanted to change that by consolidating studios.

1

u/SojayHazed 15h ago

Just you wait, OnLive is going to take off any day now

1

u/Marilius 15h ago

When my primary machine was in the shop and my wife wanted to keep using the couch gaming pc, I did Shadow PC to try it out.

The nicest thing I can say about it, is it works.

The latency is atrocious. The visual quality is abhorrent. The machines themselves are out of date and slow.

It was strictly used to get my Helldiver fix for a day or two. I cannot fathom how they're still in business. No one would ever want to use that service as their primary method of PC gaming.

1

u/_Burning_Star_IV_ 14h ago

They don't care that people don't like it they are going to keep trying to get people to like it until they ultimately force it and remove other options so you have to like it if you want to play (new) video games at all.

1

u/bgomes10 14h ago

Rather play Rock, Paper, Scissors all day.

1

u/mowtowcow 14h ago edited 14h ago

It's as bad as remote play. Doesnt matter the connection you have, it's always going to be shit.

Until we have quantum computing and internet as freely accessible as what we have now, remote play type stuff will never be great.

Well, maybe not quantum internet, but certainly quantum computing.

1

u/vkevlar 13h ago

wait, so that's what it is? really? I'd thought that shit died years ago.

1

u/Individual_Berry4681 13h ago

exactly they keep adding limits and restrictions then act surprised when people prefer just owning the game

1

u/4ricksho4 12h ago

Exactly! It looks great until you actually start playing. Even the oldest console that can run your game performs so much better.

1

u/Next-Variety-6271 11h ago

Because companies keep proving that "convenience" always comes with a massive catch down the line

1

u/DiegoSikora 11h ago

Call it cloud gaming or any other name. The gaming industry is truly f* up. I can't believe how people keep consuming videogames.

1

u/JustPruIt89 10h ago

Input latency will never be good enough. You need your own hardware

1

u/dannyglover187 10h ago

Stadia was good and had none of these issues. Fight me.

1

u/ShaoKoonce 7h ago

It was the best. I loved Stadia.

1

u/Choice_Fee67 7h ago

Nvidia has queues and so does Xbox now

Nobody saw this coming /s

1

u/Ok_Security1721 4h ago

If they tried cloud gaming it would’ve answered their question far better than anyone else could have

1

u/Osiris_Raphious 2h ago

If they could make a subscription tier list for your life they would. just like that black mirror episode.

1

u/vonBoomslang 23m ago

Sigh. I knew this would happen when the Stadia didn't bomb hard enough.

0

u/Philosophallic 15h ago

I dont know. PS potal runs buttery smooth for me.

0

u/ImNotABotScoutsHonor linux 14h ago

every time*

Two words.