cloudguy

danvm said:

agilealtitude said:

I don’t know of any other software provider that produces such poor user experiences than what Microsoft does. Honestly, ever try to navigate their online services?

MS, perhaps before you start poking others you should consider that crap you have put out there. Forget the fact that you have tried and failed with your own devices, browsers, and online stores...

The thing is that MS is pointing that the Apple requirements for game streaming makes a bad experience.  Considering Apple and MS gaming experiences, I see no issues trusting MS.  

You don't even have to trust MS. You can trust Netflix. You can trust Amazon and Kindle. I will do you better. You can trust Apple and iTunes/Apple TV+. That's right. What Apple is proposing is the equivalent of forcing you to download every single Apple TV+ movie or TV episode - or some link to it - individually to your iPhone home screen instead of streaming it through the Apple TV+ app. But doing so would remove the benefits of a media streaming app in the first place, right? Exactly! That is why Apple created a separate Apple TV+ app for their video streaming (and Apple Music for their music streaming) instead of trying to compete with Netflix and Spotify with their venerable iTunes application! (Which doesn't even exist anymore on Apple hardware precisely because it is outdated in the streaming media era!)

Here is the funny thing: you actually can download Netflix (and Amazon Prime etc.) movies and TV shows to your iOS device for offline viewing. The files can get pretty big, like 6 GB for a 2 hour 4K movie. But Apple does not require them to be individually listed and downloaded. Apple has reasons to not allow this, but it has nothing to do with revenue ... they are still going to get their 30% cut of subscriptions and purchases through the app. It is more about Apple knowing that the future is replacing expensive end user hardware (Apple's business) with a combination of cloud services (not Apple's business) and cheap hardware (also not Apple's business) and doing their level best to fight it. Using an iPad to replace a TV screen for watching movies is in Apple's interests. Using that same iPad to stream 4K games that previously required $5000 gaming rigs to play and in the process let the wide masses of people know that cloud services have gotten to the point that it is now - or will soon be - practical for most people to be able to replace their $2500 MacBook Pro with a $400 Chromebook isn't. 

22july2013 said:

On day one of loosened rules the complaints from the companies that don't get the full control that they want are rolling in. Hey Microsoft, start your own gaming platform. Oh, wait, you did. To be more fair and balanced, I'll consider MS's offering. I didn't like Apple Arcade. But I appreciate the way Apple is letting this occur. I definitely don't want companies like MS to take over control of the iOS interface and experience. They had multiple chances and they blew it. Now they are a bunch of cry babies.

Except that Google and Nvidia have the exact same model. Why? Because they ALL built their model on Netflix. Just like every single game streaming service before now has used the Netflix model. And just like every single video and music streaming service uses the Netflix model. Or the Spotify model, which is also based on the Netflix model. This includes Apple, by the way, who changed their previous iTunes-based model - which had been in place for like 15 years - to the Spotify model with Apple Music. Which, again, is the Netflix model.

Also, get over yourself. xCloud doesn't need iOS to succeed. This isn't a new service like Stadia or GeForce Now trying to get off the ground, establish itself and needs the iOS army of premium app buyers and service subscribers we are talking about. Instead, there are 90 million XBox Live customers and 10 million Game Pass customers already. While the former is $10 a month and is multiplatform, the latter is not only $15 a month but currently requires an XBox One. How many of these are going to pass up xCloud because it isn't on iOS? Practically none. More than half of them already have an Android phone or tablet lying around already, and nearly all the rest are asking Siri "where can I buy a Pixel 4A" and/or searching Safari for "what is the cheapest Samsung tablet" as we speak. 

The same is going to be true when Amazon launches the cloud portion of their Prime gaming service next year: everyone who doesn't have an Android phone or tablet already will just get a Kindle. Steam is also working on a cloud gaming service and their 90-100 million users will either already have an Android device or will get one quickly, easily and cheaply. So anyone who thinks that not being on iOS is going to do any real harm to xCloud or cloud gaming in general doesn't know a thing about AAA console and PC gaming, which is precisely the market that cloud gaming is aimed at.