Xbox Cloud Gaming launched to the general public in September 2020 following several months of public preview. At launch, it was available in 22 countries and offered over 150 games for streaming. Over the past one and a half years, Microsoft has expanded the service to four more countries and also more than doubled its game library. The company also improved the Xbox Cloud Gaming experience last year. The service is now powered by the Xbox Series X-based servers. While Microsoft never shared user stats for the game streaming service all this while, the company putting in so much effort suggested it was quite successful. Turns out it was, with Microsoft having raked in more than ten million users in less than two years. “We’re bringing Xbox everywhere with Xbox Cloud Gaming. More than ten million Xbox players have streamed games across 26 countries,” Nadella said. Microsoft’s aggressive marketing push has also helped it acquire more Xbox Cloud Gaming users. The company offers the service with the Ultimate tier of the Xbox Game Pass subscription plan, which costs $14.99 a month. Game Pass has been quite successful too, thanks to Microsoft offering first-party Xbox titles on the first day of release. The games usually include cloud streaming, thus providing multiple benefits to users. Moreover, Xbox Cloud Gaming offers a seamless gaming experience across all platforms. Whether you play on a console, smartphone, or PC, you will get the same experience everywhere. This consistency in gameplay across platforms has helped Microsoft retain users.
Nvidia’s GeForce Now has more users than Xbox Cloud Gaming
The growth of Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming has been quite stellar but it still lags Nvidia’s GeForce Now in terms of user count. The latter had 12 million players as of September 2021. Launched in February 2020, GeForce Now has a few months of headstart over Xbox Cloud Gaming and is already available in 70 countries. Nvidia reported over 175 million hours of game streaming through its service in the first year. Of course, cloud gaming goes beyond these two, with Google’s Stadia being another notable name. It’s the oldest of the trio, having launched in November 2019. But it seems the service hasn’t been as successful. Google hasn’t shared any stats regarding player count, with reports suggesting it missed its internal targets. But as cloud gaming expands, there may be opportunities for more players to carve out a sizeable market for themselves. Or will Microsoft and Nvidia make it harder for others to penetrate? Time will tell.
