I've honestly been loving xCloud so far, it's the main reason why I did the Xbox Live Gold trick (converting Live Gold months into Gamepass Ultimate months to get it cheaper) to get Ultimate for 12 months.
I really recommend it for those who want a streaming solution for gaming, however, it has its problems, most aren't major but they can be a dealbreaker to some people (maybe?) and I feel like I need to point them out in the best place I know of - the Hive Gaming community, love you guys lol
Aight, let's go.
1st issue - Clarity Boost is only available on Edge Canary as of now
This ties into my next problem, but it is a way to alleviate it.
For those who don't know, Clarity Boost does some sort of background magic behind the scenes which makes the image look a lot sharper, and this is kind of important right now, because without it, you're looking at a pixel soup.
It's not very easy to notice on a still image, but you can definitely notice how just slightly sharper enough the picture on the right is, and on fast paced games such as F1 2019 here and specially on multiplayer games such as Battlefield V, this is night and day. Whilst with it off you'll barely be able to distinguish a tree from a bush when far enough, with it on you may get the chance to see that it's neither a tree or a bush, but indeed a god damn tank waiting to blow you up.
So yes, this a very useful feature, and it's something I consider absolutely essential right now, the small problem is that... You can only use it on Edge Canary. It gets even more absurd when the official Xbox App does not have support for it. Neither on PC nor on mobile devices. My solution has been to carry my laptop everywhere. It's not a huge dealbreaker on small screens such as phones, but if you're doing it like I do: Bringing a laptop to my summer vacation to plug it into a 32 inch TV, it can be useful, it's just a shame we're forced to use Edge, and worse still, A DEVELOPMENT VERSION OF EDGE THAT WE ARE REQUIRED TO DOWNLOAD.
I don't see how the official app can't support this. If Edge Canary can, I'm most certain Microsoft could bake this into the app.
But why do we need to use this in the first place?
2nd issue - The bitrate is too low.
There's no need for me to record a pretty little video to show this, just let a search result prove it to me.
Everything looks terrible. I know, I know... Servers are hard, but we're talking about Microsoft, one of the largest corpos on planet Earth. Stadia has decent enough streaming, Playstation Now has decent enough streaming so why the hell does xCloud look so so bad?
https://www.pcgamer.com/xbox-cloud-gaming-gets-an-image-quality-boostbut-only-on-edge/
Doing some post-processing that even the AMD Adrenaline Control Center can do on its own with no performance overhead doesn't count as improvement. xCloud just recently reached the 1080p mark, but even when playing on my PC plugged in directly to my router with a 500mbps connection, it certainly doesn't look 1080p. I can tell, I've played Forza Horizon 5 natively at 1080p, xCloud barely looks 720p.
This coupled with my next problem just make this all seem like an after-thought to MS and the Xbox team:
3rd issue - Queues.
Credit to Reddit user Cool-Pop2643 for this wonderful meme
I'm not winning dad, not anytime soon. Some people have been getting egregious 10 minutes of queue time, worst I've had was 5... But that is still pretty unnaceptable.
If big companies want game streaming to be just like movie streaming, they need to do something about this - because I've never waited minutes to watch a movie on Netflix or Prime Video.
Again, I know this is a server problem, but I'm a paying customer for a service that isn't all that cheap and Microsoft most definitely has the resources to fix this.
Some even on the Reddit thread where this meme was posted have pointed out that this is mostly a problem in certain markets such as Brazil and Mexico, where internet speeds are often high but consoles are expensive. Sure, that is true, I'm from Brazil myself, but this is a huge country with tons of Microsoft infrastructure already in place, it was never just a small market for them, and the same can be said for Mexico.
It's great to know this service has been helping people on countries where hardware is often worth more than its weight in gold, but if Microsoft really wants more and more adoption from places like these, then it's essential that they invest on this.
I can't buy a Series X/S. My PC is as good as a Series S, but I'm an exception and I bought this before the hardware shortages, if they can guarantee a good service, they're going to get way more users from markets such as ours.
It's a win-win for Microsoft and the consumers.
4th issue - No game parity with Xbox Game Pass
Final Fantasy XIII as an example. Available for download, not available on Cloud Gaming.
I know that Cloud Gaming only has Xbox games, no PC games, however:
This game is available on both...
I don't really understand why there is no parity yet. I know licensing can be an issue, but this feels like it's not it, Microsoft most definitely holds enough of the deal to include these games on xCloud.
FFXIII isn't the only example, there are many great Xbox games on Gamepass missing from xCloud and it is a pretty big shame. We already even have some 360 and Original Xbox games on xCloud, but many are missing.
It was a huge shame seeing games like Black missing from xCloud.
However, with Phil Spencer touting stuff like this, it's very likely the situation will become better and better as time goes on.
I have plenty of Xbox One, 360 and Original Xbox games I bought before selling my Xbox One S and I really wish I could still play them.
Spencer has also talked about legal emulation and that could work great for my 360 and Original Xbox games, but my Xbox One games would still not be playable as I doubt Microsoft is going to bring emulation for that console, probably not very easy... So xCloud could be perfect for this, Spencer said that the games could even be played with a subscription and that would be great; but not much detail was given so we have to wait and see what happens.
Basically:
Consider these points before signing up for your subscription.
Clarity Boost is essential due to the low bitrate but is only available on Edge Canary (for now, it'll likely be available on normal Edge soon, but it's still annoying).
You might encounter queues, specially during high density hours such as during the night and on holidays.
And finally, not all games you might expect will be there, so take a look at the full list to make sure it has what you want.
Thank you for reading and I hope this helps any future Xbox Cloud Gaming users.