Rapid Growth
Microsoft’s new announcement of their 10-year partnership with Boosteroid is a giant boost (pun intended) to the cloud gaming service’s growth. Boosteroid has grown incredibly fast in the last few years and the new announcement suggests that growth could actually accelerating. It was only in January that Cloud Dosage reported Boosteroid had exceeded 3 million users – Now that number appears to stand at 4 million. Where these users are coming from is unknown, but Boosteroid only has data centers around Europe and the U.S. So, it’s a safe bet that the bulk of new users are coming from western territories.
That Boosteroid uses high end Asus gaming hardware is a significant boon too. This leaves both NVIDIA and Boosteroid with a strong competitive edge in the server-side hardware space. There are now two cloud gaming services that utilize high end PC gaming hardware for their services. That’s a very big deal. High end gaming has become more expensive in the latest generation of consoles, and PC gaming remains difficult for many. With cloud gaming growing, and Boosteroid’s continued growth, cloud gaming may become the best entryway for gamers now entering the latest generation. Boosteroid has made the most popular live service games accessible, including Fortnite and Warzone 2. In doing so, they’ve positioned themselves very attractively for younger gamers, who might struggle to get their parents to buy into a $500 console.
Even better, Boosteroid has simplified pricing tiers for their customers. It’s one price to get in the door, with all features accessible to everyone. Plus, they’ve added the ability to purchase games directly through the service thanks to their partnership with Fanatical. NNVIDIA uses pricing tiers in GeForce Now, and doesn’t currently have a storefront to buy games in-you’ll have to purchase them on another service that is linked through the GFN platform. Altogether, it makes Boosteroid a more simple service to understand. That’s a significant advantage over its closest competitor.
Strong Advantages
This all ultimately paints a picture of Boosteroid as a very competitive option for games selection, ease of use, and overall value compared to the other major gaming services. It’s a hugely encouraging development, since it indicates the viability for third party services to still enter the gaming market and shape the future of game accessibility and ownership. Microsoft’s support of that is a big win, whether or not it is meant as a PR stunt for the regulators.
It goes even deeper than that. In an era where identity theft and internet scams are getting worse and consumers settle into trusting only a select few online companies to shop from, Microsoft’s partnership legitimizes Boosteroid as a major player in the gaming space. Plenty of consumers only buy their items from Amazon, Wal-Mart and Wayfair. But if Amazon were to announce an official partnership with a smaller competitor like OnBuy.com, Amazon customers would be far more likely to make purchasing decisions on that relatively unknown website. The thinking is “I don’t know who these people are, but Microsoft trusts them, and I trust Microsoft with my wallet; so, maybe I could trust Boosteroid.”
This isn’t just a win for a burgeoning platform, it’s also a win for the European games space. Europe has never hosted a native gaming platform that has achieved mass-market status. Nintendo, Sony and Sega are Japanese companies. Steam, Microsoft, Atari, Google, and Apple are all American. Every major gaming platform that has ever existed was birthed either in the U.S. or Japan. With Boosteroid both securing this partnership and hosting 4 million users, it’s on its way to becoming the first European gaming platform that is popular around the world.
Storms Approaching
This does open up questions about the future. If Boosteroid continues to grow, does it open doors for an acquisition from Microsoft? The Xbox plays a distant second fiddle to Playstation in Europe. In fact, were it not for Nintendo, one could argue that Sony has a monopoly both there and in Japan. The majority of Xbox console sales are in North American territories. If Microsoft seeds the company with support now, does it open the doors for a potential acquisition in the future? Boosteroid is still far too small for that to be a consideration, especially since Microsoft is working on regulatory approval for bigger deals. In ten years, however, and perhaps 10 million more Boosteroid users across European territories, an acquisition cloud make much more sense. I personally wouldn’t favor that transaction. I like Boosteroid better as a stand-alone entity. The more independent platforms in cloud gaming, the better.
Even despite this admirable growth, its early days for Boosteroid. Most of the gaming market still has never heard of it, let alone tried it. As an independent platform, they are also competing with the richest and most powerful companies in the world. Boosteroid’s growth is encouraging, but it could also be because the major gaming platforms aren’t taking cloud gaming seriously right now. That’s good news for Boosteroid, but if cloud gaming continues to grow, the giants will begin more aggressive advances in the space, and Boosteroid will have a far greater fight on its hands than consumer awareness.
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