The current state of video game streaming: these are the options that players have to play in the cloud

Video game streaming is here to stay. More and more players choose to access their cloud games instead of running them locally. And it is that from a few years ago until now really serious alternatives have arrived that are configured as very solid options when it comes to playing without the hardware being important.

2022 promises to be a year in which these platforms, which for many are the future of video games, become more important. Therefore, in this article we are going to review the services available in Spain, what they offer us and what price they have.

Google Stadia

Google Stadia was the first service that brought cloud games to the most massive public, although not the first. However, Google’s bet got the world become interested in these types of options thanks to a peculiar but solid proposal.

Google Stadia is, really, store and console. Users can buy their games from the Google store and access them from almost any device. However, to get the most out of the service it is necessary to have Stadia Pro, the subscription, whose price is 9.99 euros per month.

This subscription is not necessary to access the games we have purchased, but it is necessary to tener 4K, 60 FPS y HDR and to access an increasingly rich catalog of free games that the service gives away every month. The games that we buy in Google Stadia will not disappear if we stop paying the subscription (although we will start playing them only in FullHD). However, those who have given us while we paid will no longer be accessible until we subscribe again.

Is a robust, consolidated service and whose performance is really good, although it will depend on the connection we have. It also has social features, such as Stream Connect and State Share, designed to enhance team play and collaboration, but they are not available in all titles.

NVIDIA GeForce Now

GeForce NOW is NVIDIA’s service and probably one of the greatest exponents in this field. Unlike Google Stadia, NVIDIA GeForce Now is not a store, but a platform from which to access PC games that we have previously purchased In compatible stores, with Steam or Epic Games Store.

The NVIDIA service key resides in your graphic quality in the payment methods. With the priority subscription we can access FullHD at 60 FPS with Ray-Tracing in six-hour sessions, while with RTX 3080 the quality rises to 1,440p at 120 FPS or 4K HDR on Shield TV devices.

However, you do not need to pay for access our games. With the free mode, you can play in the cloud in sessions of one hour, both our titles and the wide catalog of free to play titles on the platform, from ‘LoL’ to ‘Fortnite’.

Prices range from 9.99 euros per month for the priority subscription to 99.99 euros every six months that you have to pay to access RTX 3080. The games, of course, are separate, but the service has the advantage that the games are and will always be yours, even if you stop paying for GeForce Now or simply decide to jump to a gaming PC.

Xbox Cloud Gaming

Another great exponent of the world of streaming games is Xbox Cloud Gaming. Microsoft’s service is included in Game Pass Ultimate and allows access to a catalog of more than one hundred games. It is one of the main differences with respect to its rivals, since Xbox Cloud Gaming is more like a video game open bar than a store itself.

The “problem” with this service is that it is in beta phase, so the resolution is not as high as in the previous two. However, that does not mean that it cannot be played properly from the computer, the console or the mobile, as long as we do not mind always using the controller since, for now, it does not have support for keyboard and mouse.

The advantage that Xbox Cloud Gaming offers us is that it allows us to access almost all Game Pass games, including those from Microsoft and those from third parties (EA Play, for example). That is, it can be used both to play anywhere and anytime and to test a game before deciding whether or not to download it locally.

PS Now

PS Now is Sony / PlayStation’s bet on cloud gaming. Sony’s service, which costs 9.99 euros per month, allows us to play more than 700 new and previous generation games, both in the cloud and, in some cases, locally (downloading the game to the console).

It has a very extensive catalog, but unlike Microsoft’s bet, the new titles are not available at launch. The streaming quality is not the best either, although it was recently announced that, after several years, the leap to FullHD resolution was going to be made.

Another aspect to take into account is that the service It is only accessible from the consoles themselves and from the computer, but not from other devices such as mobile phones or tablets. For that you have to use another application, PS Remote Play.

Nintendo Switch Cloud

The last service that concerns us today is Nintendo Switch Cloud. It is, roughly, an alternative offered by Nintendo to play certain titles that are too demanding for your console through the cloud. It is not a subscription as such, but the game we have purchased runs in the cloud.

Although the catalog is growing, at the moment there are few titles that are available in this format, being some of the most striking ‘Control’ y ‘Hitman III’. In addition, it is a Nintendo Switch exclusive service, so it cannot be used on other platforms.

What’s to come

And now that we know what services we have available, we have to talk about those to come. The most important is Amazon Moon, which is Amazon’s Google Stadia. It is, like its Google counterpart, a store and gaming platform, controller included. At the moment, it is only available in the United States and in the testing phase, but hopefully it will reach the world sooner rather than later.

Another popular service in this field of video game streaming is Shadow, which really allows us to have a complete computer in the cloud. We can use it to play, but also for any other matter. The problem is that it is only available in the United States and some European countries, but not in Spain.