DECEMBER 2019 PCWorld 93that has nothing to do with lag. It’s the
challenge of compressing games that could
be, and usually are, played on large displays in
the family room, into a tiny fraction of that
screen space. Microsoft sells a phone clip that
attaches to your Xbox controller, though my
smartphone car mount did just fine. A phone
can be balanced against everything from a
laptop screen to a couch cushion. Over time,
though, simply squinting at games wore down
my eyes quickly, to the point where it became
a chore rather than a pleasure to play them.
That, of course, begs the question: If a
phone is too small to enjoy playing games,
what other options are there? Tablets, of
course, would be a natural choice, and there
is an Android app, but nothing for iOS. I have
a suspicion that
Microsoft sees
xCloud as perhaps
the killer application
for foldable phones
like Microsoft’s
Surface Duo (go.
pcworld.com/sfdu).
There’s still the
question of data (go.
pcworld.com/payg).
I didn’t track how
much data xCloud
uses, but I have an
unlimited
connection. Not
everyone does.
Microsoft also has not enabled Project
xCloud to stream to a remote Windows PC via
Wi-Fi or cellular.
It’s not entirely clear how Microsoft will
price xCloud, or how it will be deployed.
Making it part of Game Pass Ultimate seems to
be a popular guess. Let’s hope that it’s a “try
before you buy” scenario, or that Project
xCloud is bundled with Game Pass, eliminating
the “do I really want to pay for this?” question.
Since I’ve tested OnLive before, some of
the “magic” has gone out of cloud gaming.
Playing over cellular, though, has put some of
it right back. Being able to toss a controller
into a backpack and play in a few spare
moments is kind of amazing. Maybe this is the
future, after all.No, xCloud isn’t as good as a local console, and may never be. But depending
on what you’re playing and over what connection, it’s okay.