Xbox Cloud Gaming Hourly Usage is Up 1,800% in the Last Year - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 August 2022 / 3,506 Views

Kevin LaChapelle and Catherine Gluckstein, members of the Xbox Cloud Gaming team, in a new video published on YouTube discuss the updates made during the last year, and more.

Gluckstein stated that hourly usage for Xbox Cloud Gaming has increased 1,800% in the last year. Microsoft is working to meet the higher demand by adding more servers around the world.

"I was looking at some of our data," said Gluckstein. "Our hours are up more than 1,800% since this time last year. That's an awful lot of gameplay."

Xbox earlier this year partnered with Epic Games to make Fortnite available on Xbox Cloud Gaming for free on supported browser-enabled devices. In order to play Fortnite via Xbox Cloud Gaming all you need is a Microsoft account and an iOS, iPadOS, Android phone or tablet, or Windows PC with internet access.

The senior global product manager at Xbox Game Pass Pav Bhardwaj last month stated video game consoles are here to stay and playing games via cloud streaming is not a replacement, but is an alternative.

"Some people are always going to love playing on consoles, having a console in their living room to download and have that experience," Bhardwaj said at the time.

"I love consoles -- this is just another route, another option to open up gaming to other people. It's not that one is a detriment to the other, this is more of a rising tide, and it's a really good place to be in to offer all these different opportunities. There's still PC, and there'll be new form factors that come out in future.

"Consoles are beloved, and cloud gaming is just a great alternative."

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.

6 Comments

Imaginedvl (on 01 August 2022)

I know that personally when I do not have access to my PC or Xbox and want to play something on the go, I use xCloud on my phone a lot for non-real time games (turn based stuff, RPGs etc..); it works very well as an optional thing.

AkimboCurly (on 03 August 2022)

Well indeed. Last year it was hardly usable for its intended purpose as an on-the-go thing. But now 5G is everywhere the streaming part of it works amazingly well.

Trouble for me is I hate the touchscreen controls and don't see myself every carrying a controller around just on the off-chance

VAMatt (on 02 August 2022)

I haven't used it much, except to test it out a year or two back. But, I have a buddy that I play with from time to time who uses it regularly. We play co-op games where I'm playing from internal storage and he's streaming. We haven't noticed any issues.

scrapking VAMatt (on 03 August 2022)

What I like is the ability to play a downloaded copy on one device, and stream it to another device, with your game saves being entirely seamless between the two.