>Cloud gaming means you will be able to take your game “everywhere” and avoid dreaded 20-minute updates before you can start playing.
Doubt. In the same way that movies on PSP had this idea in mind but fell flat on it's face, games are strongly tied to the format and environment in which you consume them.
FPS gaming with a keyboard and mouse isn't coming with you on your phone for the morning commute, and no amount of technology is going to change that because the main barrier is you won't want to play that game on your morning commute with a bunch of people around you, noise, and being unable to immerse yourself (even for reasons as simple as needing to remember to get off at your stop).
That said, perhaps the converse doesn't hold true, and when you flop down in front of your screen in the evening you can get into a 6h marathon of bejeweled just the same as you were playing on the train into work that morning. Streaming isn't an enabler for this though, just cross-platform builds of your chosen game and cross-format suitability for input/output methods.
>Microsoft claims Game Pass subscribers increase their overall playtime by 40%
I'd really like to see retention stats alongside this to drawn an inference, because (anecdotally), I subscribed, played the shit out of the one game I subscribed for, then cancelled my sub before the next month. I definitely look like a player with increased playtime, because I deliberately did that to play a game that would have cost $$ for just $.
Doubt. In the same way that movies on PSP had this idea in mind but fell flat on it's face, games are strongly tied to the format and environment in which you consume them.
FPS gaming with a keyboard and mouse isn't coming with you on your phone for the morning commute, and no amount of technology is going to change that because the main barrier is you won't want to play that game on your morning commute with a bunch of people around you, noise, and being unable to immerse yourself (even for reasons as simple as needing to remember to get off at your stop).
That said, perhaps the converse doesn't hold true, and when you flop down in front of your screen in the evening you can get into a 6h marathon of bejeweled just the same as you were playing on the train into work that morning. Streaming isn't an enabler for this though, just cross-platform builds of your chosen game and cross-format suitability for input/output methods.
>Microsoft claims Game Pass subscribers increase their overall playtime by 40%
I'd really like to see retention stats alongside this to drawn an inference, because (anecdotally), I subscribed, played the shit out of the one game I subscribed for, then cancelled my sub before the next month. I definitely look like a player with increased playtime, because I deliberately did that to play a game that would have cost $$ for just $.