The cloud gaming market is valued at $585 billion, up from $140 billion in 2019, with the COVID-19 pandemic being the main reason for this growth, as many of those who were forced to stay at home have decided to turn their attention to cloud gaming services.
Let’s get acquainted with the most significant changes that have taken place in the services that are veterans of the gaming front, and also evaluate a few new recruits.
Google Stadia
This service presents two subscription options, basic and professional.
The Pro variant lets you play in the cloud for $9.99 a month with surround sound and quality up to 4K, with games both free and at a pretty hefty discount. As for the basic version, users are forced to buy games at full price, while the quality is limited to 1080p. In order to become a participant in the gaming process, you will need a stable connection of 10 Mb / s, and the stability of the service has improved significantly. The changes also affected the controller from Stadia, which now connects directly to the router via Wi-Fi, which minimizes delays. Currently, Google’s service is available in 22 countries, and they promise to expand the geography.
Geforce Now
The main difference of this service is the ability to connect Steam accounts, as well as the Epic Games Store, which allows you to use games purchased earlier.
The basic subscription limits the gaming session to one hour, and the user gets a fairly low priority in the queue, while the premium version, which can be purchased for 999 rubles, increases the priority of the queue and increases the gaming session to six hours, and also provides RTX. The connection speed requirement is slightly higher than in the case of the service from Google, 15 and 25 Mb / s for quality in 720p and 1080p, respectively, and 4K is absent. It is especially worth noting that this service is now available not only to residents of Moscow and the Moscow region, since the placement of a server that supports GFN in the Urals data center in the fall of last year somewhat expanded the geography.
PlayStation Now
The library of the service contains more than eight hundred games for PS2, PS3 and PS4.
A monthly subscription costs $9.99, up from $19.99 until recently. A subscription for three months will cost $24.99, while for a year you will have to pay $59.99. New users are given a trial week.
PlayKey
This hourly service is available to all residents of the Russian Federation, and the cost of the minimum package for two hours of play is 160 rubles, while for the maximum package, which allows you to spend one hundred hours in the gaming cloud, you will have to pay six thousand rubles.
It is worth noting that last year the service returned a subscription worth 2490 rubles, which already includes access to hundreds of EA Play Pro or Xbox Game Pass games. It is worth noting that MTS has included this service in the first marketplace in Russia operating in the field of cloud gaming.
xCloud
A service from Microsoft that has launched in 22 countries, among which Russia is not yet available.
Game Pass Ultimate, which provides access to 150 streaming games, can be purchased for $15 per month. The service allows, if necessary, to start playing on the console, then go to the tablet, and then go back, and the lists of friends, as well as all achievements, are synchronized.
Luna
This service is the brainchild of Amazon, differing in a not quite standard subscription system.
Thus, it is proposed to pay a monthly fee for each channel to which the user wishes to access. There are currently two channels, Luna Plus Amazon and Ubisoft Plus, which will cost $5.99 and $14.99 a month to access. You can play using the Amazon Luna controller, as well as PS4 or Xbox One gamepads.
My.Games Cloud
It is a service of the gaming division of Mail.ru Group, which allows you to play fairly modern games even on relatively old computers running Windows.
The free plan gives you the opportunity to play 23 hours a month, with FullHD resolution. A subscription, for which you will have to pay 999 rubles, will allow you to increase the quality of graphics to 4K, and also get rid of intrusive ads.
Summary
Given the fact that more and more such services have been emerging lately, it can be assumed that cloud gaming will continue to develop.
