One of the great struggles covering an ecosystem like cloud gaming is not having access to the kinds of data that more privileged positions have, like executives and investors. Microsoft is a global company, with their services available everywhere they can possibly be. With Xbox Cloud Gaming, Microsoft has been able to penetrate markets that can’t traditionally afford consoles. We don’t know what those numbers look like, broadly speaking. All we know is that over 20 million people have tried Xbox Cloud.
When Microsoft released those numbers, we assumed players had perhaps tried cloud, and then gone back to their usual habits. But in some territories, it seems that cloud gaming has really stuck the landing. Phil Spencer recently sat down on the Verge’s Decoder podcast to talk about Xbox and gaming in general. It was an outstanding interview, and I recommend a long-form listen.
When Phil Spencer was asked about Google Stadia, he complimented them on their technology. But talked about their weakness being in the way they handled content. He took that conversation to elaborate further on cloud gaming as it related to Xbox.
“… We’ve now had over 20 million people use xCloud… There are certain markets where a majority of our customers are playing on cloud, on Xbox, and we think that’s great…”
The takeaway here is that the Xbox player base isn’t just trying games on cloud. Some of them are even migrating to the cloud. It’s an encouraging bit of data. Now we know that audiences are warming up to the idea of playing their favorite games in new ways.
