Xbox Cloud Gaming, the game streaming service still in testing from Microsoft, has received an updated with better availability across devices and regions.
Let’s start with the latter first as 22 countries have access to Xbox Cloud Gaming. Bizarrely, in the announcement, it is recommended that people go to this page to find out if their region is supported. Going there will tell you if you’re not allowed in, but the availability tool it links to doesn’t provide supported regions for the service.
Thankfully this is provided elsewhere from third parties. Those 22 countries are:
• Austria
• Belgium
• Canada
• Czechia
• Denmark
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Italy
• Korea
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Poland
• Portugal
• Slovakia
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• United Kingdom
• United States
As we revealed in the headline South Africa has unfortunately been left out in the cold this time around.
While we can’t access Xbox Cloud Gaming we can at least read about the changes that have been implemented. Active immediately internet browsers and Windows 10 PCs can now access the streaming service.
Before now only Android device have had access to this really opens up the platform. Those who prefer Apple devices now can have a swing at things as well as most devices that can use Chrome, Microsoft Edge or Safari browsers.
A paid Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription is still required to get in with the promise of 1080p / 60FPS streaming promised. Performance has always been a bugbear for game streaming so region restrictions have always been a necessary evil as the network infrastructure is worked out. Hopefully, by the time Xbox Cloud Gaming arrives in Africa, those numbers will be rock solid.
Oh and there’s this (intentionally?) bad trailer released on Twitter to mark the occasion. There’s a slightly less cringey trailer on YouTube which very much plays into the “attractive 20 somethings and impromptu gaming”. It has nothing on the rooftop gaming weirdness of the Nintendo Switch, but it’s very much in the same category.
The Xbox Cloud Gaming update for PC and Apple devices is here! for all the details, you can:
listen to this remix of our hit single “so many games”
Or
click here: https://t.co/tNTWpTmuXC pic.twitter.com/UfSTlAkjky
— Xbox Game Pass (@XboxGamePass) June 28, 2021
