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Microsoft earlier this week made its Xbox Cloud Gaming service available on iOS devices, which means iPhone and iPad users can play Xbox games using the Safari browser.


We decided to test out Xbox Cloud Gaming to see how it works at launch, and whether it's worth the $14.99 subscription price for the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, which is how you can get access to Xbox Cloud Gaming.

In a nutshell, whether it's worth trying out depends on what you want to play. In our experience, and based on other accounts from people who have tested the service, there's latency, sometimes bad and sometimes just sporadic. The lag doesn't make most games unplayable, but it does affect competitive online shooters.

Latency can depend on connection, so it's possible Xbox Cloud Gaming is fine if you have stellar internet speeds, but most reports so far suggest that it needs to be further refined for games where latency is a dealbreaker. We found we could adjust to the very slight delays for sports games and other titles, but with shooters, gameplay was hampered.

Given the latency issues, we wouldn't recommend the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription strictly for Xbox Cloud Gaming, but if it's something that you already have, it's a great bonus feature. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate provides access to more than 100 games on Xbox, PCs, and mobile devices, plus same day release access to Xbox Game Studios titles.

If you want to try out Xbox Cloud Gaming, you can pay $1 to get three months of access to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. After that three-month period, the subscription is priced at $14.99 per month.

Article Link: Hands-On With Microsoft's Browser-Based Xbox Cloud Gaming Service on an iPhone
 
Xbox Cloud Gaming is fantastic. Yes the sole issue is you need a real good connection, so if you have that then you're set. To take full advantage of Ultimate tho you should buy an Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S. S is suitable for most people and is taking off in Japan right now due to their love for minimalism.
 
Tried it on the Mac, ridiculously laggy. Not sure how much this will improve. I have a 200+MB connection, that should be enough.
You likely have a 200Mb connection, which is 20MB. That's also essentially a bare minimum depending on how far away you are from the data center.
 
I’ve tested it out on a few games. Seems to be pretty good for me! Honestly no real complains. I’m definitely more of a casual gamer though, and don’t play those shooter games so I can see why the latency issue could be a dealbreaker for some! Hope they can optimize this before it gets out of beta. But for a beta program? It’s superb.
 
You likely have a 200Mb connection, which is 20MB. That's also essentially a bare minimum depending on how far away you are from the data center.

10 Mbps is the minimum connection speed. 200 Mbps is well in excess. And internet speeds are never given as MB.
 
If you have a 1000 Mbps or 60 Mbps internet connection is completely meaningless, what you want is sub 20ms latency measured to the service. For this you need fiber + ethernet. For game streaming services is all about latency MacRumors, WiFi can be a hit & miss experience depending on a myriad of factors. Please re-shoot this video while connecting the iPad via ethernet.

I currently game on GeForce Now from a city in central Mexico connected to Central US with great performance and minimum lag, but I have fiber and connect via gigabit ethernet to the modem. Im 1k+ miles away from the servers and still get sub 40ms latency because of cat 8 gigabit ethernet & fiber.

I wouldnt even dare to game on WiFi.
 
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