I was a Google Stadia Founder. I jumped off at one point due to some bad customer service associated with the other Google services I use; I retuned later. But by and large I was always a fan of the service. It became my travel gaming solution. It kept me from having to lug a gaming laptop and its associated brick of a power supply. Especially on trips where I already had to bring a work laptop. For family trips, I always carry a tablet. Stadia prevented me from having to also pack my Nintendo Switch, and, there at the end, my Steam Deck in their rigid travel cases and with their associated accessories. It worked for me at home. It worked in a hotel. Tablets becoming compatible with XBox and PlayStation controllers were boons equivalent to the joy I’d felt using the nVIDIA SHIELD and its controller solutions once I was able to pair them with my Stadia experience. But, of course, it has all come to an end.
I set up this discussion about Xbox Cloud Gaming and Game Pass to thoroughly telegraph that Cloud Game Streaming for me is about moments of convenience. As part of my livestreaming, hardware reviewing, podcasting, and blogging, I run 5 gaming PCs and 4 consoles. I don’t need to light off a fire-breathing dragon every single night. And I certainly don’t need to carry one on travel when it is not absolutely necessary. The convenience of Stadia for me was the ability to pick up a mobile device or sit at a business or ultraportable laptop, my LINUX laptop, or some other low-end device, bring up Stadia, not worry about patches, System Updates, drivers, controller firmware updates, being assaulted with ads or whatever cockamamie thing Microsoft or Sony wanted me to pay attention to that day…and just game. It’s not about graphical fidelity or a high-end hardware experience. I have that in spades; enough to keep 9 gamers occupied. So I can make other choices.
And there we have the departure from the silliness that normally surrounds this discussion. The people who try to make the discussion about Cloud Game Streaming as a replacement for hardware experiences. It’s about convenience for me. And not having to be bothered when I don’t want to be.
It just works.
But…there is some interest I have in it for ROI. I also use a lot of high-end mobile gear. Hold-over behavior from when I was a mobile device reviewer. And I have more XBox controllers than I can shake a stick at. My yen for getting back to gaming on mobile was piqued throughout 2022 as my co-hosts on the Enough 2 Keep Going Weekly games podcast constantly talked about Marvel Snap and Retro Bowl. More over, hearing so many of my adult friends re-surface the discussion of the difficulty in finding time to game between house, kids, career, cars, and pets, I also thought last year about how mobile gaming became my primary gaming outlet during my second grad school degree. Offerings have gotten more complex these days, but I still wanted to get back to some small screen gaming in 2023, and some quiet nights without exhaust fans spinning in the game room with the boompse.
With no more Stadia in the picture, and GeForce Now not really providing me anything outside of my Steam Library experience (and being more expensive than desired), I resolved to sign back up for Game Pass Ultimate to also take advantage of XCG. I’ve hopped off the service twice in 2022.
Once due to lack of interest and the big cancellations. The second time because in reviewing my consumption models in the fall, I was just buying those games anyway. While I have a new PC build underway…the most powerful beast I’ve put together…and a major studio re-arrangement in progress, things are almost getting back to normal. Now was a good time to get back to Game Pass and try out some XCG as it will let me build incrementally in the background, take a break while playing, and not get too deep into a 3 or 4 hour gaming session on a more powerful piece of metal. So hopefully I’ll get the build done without doing nothing but that for a day or two, and get some lightweight gaming done on the side. This is my second year with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 and it’s embarrassing to say that I have not used it much for gaming and absolutely should have. Ditto for my iPhone 13 Pro Max and Google Pixel 6 Pro. I’m looking forward to taking them for a spin with XCG, as well as my iPad Pro, which is due for an upgrade this fall. I also brought in a BACKBONE One for a slightly different controller experience. Good times.
And here lies yet another departure. The discussion of Game Pass swirls around this obtuse way of thinking about consumption as if someone signing up for Game Pass is making a lifetime commitment. As if people cannot dance in and dance out just like we do with video streaming services. Turn a thing on to consume what you want and then turn it off. I saw one narrow-minded analogy the other day, which was a bit idiotic, comparing Game Pass subscriptions to PlayStation console sales. Anyone actually educated in market analysis knows that these two products do not compete with each other. People are not down-selecting between a console and a subscription service. Hardware does not compete directly with service access. And hardware is a long-term, seven year (at least) commitment to an ecosystem. A subscription service is a flexible means of consumption that can be turned on and off like a water fountain. Only the unsophisticated get those twisted.
Rounding Off Infinity 