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Back in June, Tom’s Guide tested Xbox Game Pass on a Samsung smart TV, and called the experience “almost flawless.” Within half an hour, I streamed about half of the different games and had an almost unnoticeable experience playing on a console. However, I realized that I tested the product under the right conditions:
“It’s fair to say that I broadcast a few minutes of each game,” I wrote. “The real test will be to see how the games perform over longer gaming sessions. It will be interesting to see if a wireless connection produces the same results, since not every entertainment center can be accessed by a router.
A few weeks ago, Tom’s Guide received the Samsung Odyssey Ark, a combined TV/gaming monitor, shipped to our office. That meant I could finally test the Xbox Game Pass app under real-world conditions. As I’d hoped, streaming games directly to a smart TV is a passable area for the Xbox Series X/S – and as I feared, it still falls significantly short of a dedicated console.
What Xbox Cloud Gaming is good for
To stand toe-to-toe with the console experience, Xbox Cloud Gaming will first need to nail down the basics. That means I need to provide the games I want to play, make them easy to run, and play them with minimal friction. Cloud gaming aficionados will be happy to hear that the Xbox Game Pass app on Samsung smart TVs succeeds on all three counts.
To stream Xbox games on a Samsung smart TV, you need two things besides the TV itself: an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription ($15 per month) and a Bluetooth controller (an official Xbox controller costs $60). From there, you simply download the Xbox Game Pass app to your TV, sign in to your Microsoft account and jump into your game. We tested the Wi-Fi connection with 136 Mbps down, and 228 Mbps up, far exceeding Microsoft’s recommended bandwidth of 10 Mbps.
Currently, Xbox Game Pass offers over 350 games to stream, from new hits like Return to Monkey Island and Persona 5 Royal, to classics like Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Dragon Age: Origins . Thus, Xbox Cloud Gaming passed the first test: I can easily find what I want to play. I settled on Immortals: Rise of the Fenyx, an open world game/adventure game from Ubisoft.
Next, I wanted to get the game up and running, which turned out to be easy with the console. I downloaded the Xbox Game Pass app to the Samsung Odyssey Ark; Sign in to my account; I looked through the Xbox Game Pass library until I came across Immortals; I clicked on the game and waited for it to load. The whole process should not take more than two minutes.
Finally – and most importantly – Immortals had to play smoothly, without any input delay, lag or significant graphics issues. I played the game for about three hours, replicating how a long gaming session at home can feel. During that time, I was able to jump, climb and slide around the colorful world of Greek mythology, fighting enemies and solving puzzles as I went. While the experience wasn’t completely perfect, I was completely happy with the experience, especially if I didn’t have an Xbox Series X as a point of comparison.
However, I had the Xbox Series X handy. And when I switched to a dedicated console, I started seeing cracks in Xbox Cloud Gaming.
What is wrong with Xbox Cloud Gaming
First and foremost, gaming on Xbox Cloud Gaming doesn’t look as good as the Xbox Series X/S. Currently, games on Xbox Game Pass max out at 1080p and 60 frames per second. Games on the Xbox Series X can reach 4K/120 fps, while the Series S supports 1440p/120 fps. Immortality on Xbox Series X looked sharper, more detailed and more fluid. But the biggest difference between the two versions of the game was the color scheme. Xbox consoles support HDR, which is great for a game like Immortal, which has cartoonish character designs and a plethora of vibrant blues, pinks and greens.
Furthermore, while Immortals played smoothly with Xbox Cloud Gaming, that performance came at a price. The game suffers from frequent rendering problems, especially in the background graphics. Moving the camera usually results in a few background squares that can’t capture the entire screen. The foreground was very focused, so the artwork didn’t spoil any of the important platforming or combat challenges. But it was too distracting and killed any sense of immersion that Immortals had built up.
Another issue that has come up is that smart TVs, the best ones like Odyssey Ark, are not gaming systems. Games are a secondary application, and sometimes, they will not work properly. The second time I started the Xbox Game Pass app, it wouldn’t load at all, and no amount of turning the TV on and off again would solve the issue. In the end, I had to clear the TV cache (which was surprisingly difficult; it’s buried about six menus deep) and sign in again from scratch. If the Xbox starts up and just refuses to play games, there must be something wrong with the system.
Finally, I didn’t realize how weak Xbox Cloud Gaming audio is. Something about the streaming service’s audio compression made the dialogue, sound effects and music in Immortals sound less clear and metallic than I expected. Once I switched to the Xbox Series X and its 3D audio capabilities, the game’s audio sounded clearer, and the music sounded more lifelike.
In the case of Xbox Cloud Gaming, I didn’t encounter any major issues while trying to play the current big budget game. But I encountered a whole bunch of minor ones, and I didn’t realize how annoying those issues were until I went back to a regular console.
Xbox Cloud Gaming features
I don’t want to sell Xbox Cloud Gaming short, or grouse too much about it. It is not entirely fair to compare the beta streaming service with a console that is already two years old – and a console family that has come out 21. Moreover, Microsoft did not promise a perfect match between Xbox Cloud Gaming and the full experience of the console. If you already have an Xbox console, or a powerful gaming PC, there is no compelling reason to switch to cloud gaming.
And yet, part of the beauty of Xbox Game Pass is that you don’t have to choose one or the other. As I switch back and forth between the Xbox app and the Xbox console, my save files sync quickly and automatically. I foresaw the Xbox Game Pass smart TV app to be beneficial for gamers on the go, who don’t want to pack the entire Xbox console in their luggage, but don’t mind taking the controller to a hotel or a relative’s house.
While I can’t recommend the Xbox Game Pass smart TV app as a complete console replacement just yet, it’s already in a promising spot, only a few months after launch. Dedicated gamers will want to hang on to their Xboxes for now, but the day when casual gamers decide to ditch consoles altogether may not be far off.
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