Since its announcement in 2018, Xbox Cloud Gaming (ex-Projet xCloud) has come a long way and now offers a substantial catalog of over 300 Xbox Game Pass games, allowing you to enjoy it on all screens (Android smartphones, iOS, Windows 10/11, Mac OS). Little by little, Microsoft allows the player to overcome the material limitations and offers tactile, practical and popular controls.
Just one screen is enough
Microsoft believes in its rental game offering to appeal to a growing audience. The success of Xbox Game Pass It is no longer to be tested and its functionalities are constantly evolving. Touch controls are part of this and allow you to start a game anywhere and without any hardware restrictions other than having a screen, as long as you have a decent internet connection. In a recent article on the Source From the Game Stack developers, Microsoft is reviewing this feature and what makes it so successful.
This need or this desire to get rid of a console or a controller is explained to us by Monty Hernandez, Xbox senior program manager through an interesting analysis. According to him, the Xbox Cloud Gaming program is a real advantage for developers who can reach many more players thanks to the touch controls:
Running a fully powered console title on a low-powered mobile phone or PC just hasn’t been possible in the past. These devices include touchscreen capabilities, and people expect experiences to scale and fully utilize the form factor. Plus, the promise of Xbox Cloud Gaming is accessibility and reach. The cloud enables the incredible experiences that game developers create to be enjoyed on the go, by consumers who have never owned a console, and in new and emerging markets.
When Monty Hernandez talks about new and emerging markets, it’s hard not to think of Asian countries where Xbox has always struggled to enter, but where mobile games are consumed much more frequently (if not daily) than in Western countries. He goes on to emphasize the ease of maneuvering by explaining that making a game tactile is nothing more than an overlay of customizable lines of code to add to the original file. For developers, such as Playful Studios (New Super Lucky tale), this is a significant advantage.
The touch controls are fully responsive and customizable with just a few clicks. Here, Sea of Thieves.
Using New Super Lucky’s Tale on xCloud isn’t just about simplicity. It was delicious, requiring little more than running the game and experiencing how fun and intuitive it is to play on a phone. This is just one of the many innovations Microsoft is bringing to the game right now and we couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity it gives us to share Lucky with even more players.
The touch controls are a real bonus for a fast and intuitive gaming experience and this feels more in a title like Football Manager 2022 who benefits wonderfully. In any case, players are not wrong as 20% of them would only play exclusively in this way. Titles that offer this maneuverability would even play twice as often on Xbox Cloud Gaming thanks to this feature! While the list of touch games grows over the weeks, some of them even target 30% of players as the experience is appreciable:
- Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition
- Football Manager 2022 Xbox Edition
- hell
- Minecraft Dungeons
- New Super Lucky tale
- Scarlet nexus
- Yakuza: like a dragon
If you haven’t had a chance to test the touch controls yet, we can’t recommend highly enough that you take a look at our updated list of supported titles and you’re sure to find something you like. These can still be improved, of course, but they allow you to approach the game differently with the possibility of launching an AAA from your mobile phone. It is time to be convinced that beyond sight or hearing, video games can also be a hobby of touch.
Xbox Game Pass and Cloud Gaming: 17 New Touch Games (Full List)
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