Microsoft gaming head Phil Spencer made a surprising revelation about Xbox cloud gaming.
As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, he shared this message on LinkedIn:
One way we measure progress is by looking at engagement, and the momentum is encouraging: Game Pass cloud hours are up 45% compared to this time last year, and console players are streaming 45% more on console and 24% more on other devices.
Phil quoted an announcement from the Xbox LinkedIn account that revealed that they just launched cloud gaming in India, their 29th market. Xbox cloud gaming is also expanding their servers in Brazil and Argentina.
Is Xbox Cloud Gaming Really Working?
Once again, we are somewhat curtailed by Microsoft’s control over their business figures, especially for their gaming division. As we now see, Xbox keeping this information secret has also allowed them to extend control over the discourse.
What is notable is that a lot of the noise on social media is certainly centralized in the West, and especially in the US. So there are already impediments for how well we can find out how successful cloud gaming is outside the US.
It’s also fascinating that they shared this information specifically about their Xbox console owners, as it makes something implicit.
Xbox Cloud Is A Win For Xbox One Owners
While Xbox One had a disastrous launch, or perhaps because of it, Microsoft went above and beyond to redeem the console as best as they could.
If you’re console warring, you can probably only see this in terms of Xbox losing that battle. But if you owned an Xbox One, and especially an Xbox One X, you know the little wins that Microsoft got for their fans.
One of those wins was Xbox cloud gaming. It may seem unnecessary to have to cloud stream your games on your console. At the time, cloud gaming also had a harsh stigma, before it got passed onto the blockchain, and more recently, AI models.
If you didn’t upgrade to an Xbox Series X or S, you might have a hard time getting one now. But cloud gaming would have taken care of your needs this whole time.
Xbox Gamers Are Changing Their Behaviors Too
Spencer also revealed that their players who have Xbox consoles also spend some time playing on other devices via the cloud. This probably accounts for gamers who have taken advantage of Xbox cloud gaming on phones, tablets, even smart TVs.
While Xbox is a smaller pond than PlayStation, Microsoft is showing proficiency in getting their gamers to play and spend in all manner of different ways. In that sense, Microsoft is ahead of their rivals, and setting themselves up to be a sleeping giant.
