Today, the game of cloud games between overseas manufacturers is still continuing, google's stadia, Microsoft's cloud game business, Nvidia's GeForce Now, Amazon's Luna and recently The Facebook cloud game, all of which are groping for the most "suitable" development for themselves.
A few days ago, Sony released its own killing move to Microsoft, according to Bloomberg, Sony is stepping up the launch of a new subscription-based service codenamed "Spartcus", integrating Sony's existing Play Station Plus and PlayStation Now services to compete with Microsoft's XGP, and the official launch time is expected to be in the spring of 2022.
Recently, a lot of unknowns about Sony have been reported, but the big mouth is actually "Apple".
The dispute between Epic and Apple lasted for a long time, and as for the outcome, many people thought it was a lose-lose situation. According to foreign media TheVerge, on December 13, an investigation into many historical documents that were used as evidence and written on them was "highly confidential - only for lawyers", it was found that Apple and Sony had planned to launch the PlayStation Now cloud gaming service on mobile phones.
According to an Apple document, Sony's operation was to extend the existing streaming service mobile, enabling PlayStation users to experience more than 450 PS3 games on mobile, and as envisaged at the time, PS4 games.
Judging from the results, this plan should be "stillborn", and the hand-in-hand between Sony and Apple has also become a passing cloud for some reasons. Currently, PS Now cloud gaming is serving users in Europe, the United States, Canada and Japan, where users can play PS4, PS3 and PS2 games on PS5, PS4 or Windows, but android and iOS and Mac computers are not available.
As for the reason, there is no definitive evidence to prove a certain inference, And The Verge speculates that Sony's energy was more focused on the sales of game consoles at that time, and competition with Apple was not necessary.
But competition with Microsoft is necessary, And The Verge says it has been steadily adding customized Xbox touch controls over the past year, with more than 100 games streamed to Android and iOS phones using its Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service.
Many people may think that using touch screens to play cloud games is more like a gimmick, but Microsoft recently said that 20% of players use these touch controls specifically to play games. The inertia of players due to the formation of mobile game habits, or many mobile gamers began to look at cloud games due to the maturity of Microsoft technology, which may cause this situation.
Monty Hernandez, senior project manager at Xbox, explained that 20% felt that Xbox cloud gaming users would use touch as the only way they played the game, so for Microsoft, the most important thing was that the launch of touch-enabled games was related, and most importantly, using touch control would have a better play experience, and even the proportion of touch screen operations in individual games reached 30%.
Microsoft has been guiding the convergence of cloud gaming and mobile, and usage also shows that game developers have been keen to add these customized touch controls over the past year. Microsoft came to this idea by breaking down technical barriers, allowing game developers to build on GitHub's sample layout and customize it for each game.
Monty Hernandez admits: "After the survey, it was found that among the game products provided through Xbox Cloud Games, the use of games that implement touch control increased by an average of 2 times. Throughout the cloud game many products have been made to impress with touch controls, with custom styles to help players who are purely using touch screens. ”
Currently, there are more than 100 games in the Xbox Cloud Gaming System that support these custom touch controls, but that's not the end of it.
The emergence of cloud games, not only the progress, may also have the reappearance of classic games, Sony is currently lagging behind Microsoft in terms of functionality, Spartcus is most likely Sony's killing move, the dispute between the two console bosses to a new stage.