Microsoft’s xCloud, the new cloud game streaming component a part of Xbox’s Game Pass Ultimate, has officially launched for iOS devices like iPhone, iPad, and macOS. The xCloud doesn’t require the use of a console and the PC version can be accessed through the Edge Browser and Google Chrome. With over 100 games available to play, Game Pass Ultimate holders will be able to have access to many beloved titles. Another feature of the xCloud is that the service is compatible with Bluetooth controllers and USB controllers. On iOS devices, the xCloud can be accessed through web-based apps like Safari. Players will get to choose to have a controller or touch controls for different games. With xCloud being powered by a custom Xbox Series X console hardware, setting streams to 1080p at up to 60 frames per second can be achieved for those with fast internet connections.

• Microsoft has finally made its xCloud game streaming service widely available on PCs, Macs, and iOS devices. According to a blog post from the gaming giant, xCloud will now be widely available to all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members using Windows 10 PCs, macOS computers, or iOS devices such as iPhones and iPads.
• Jun 29, 2021 According to a blog post from the gaming giant, xCloud will now be widely available for all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members using Windows 10 PCs, macOS computers, or iOS devices such as iPhones.
• In order to play xCloud games, players will need to have a device running Android 6.0 or later. The service also works with a variety of controllers, including Microsoft’s Xbox One controller.

Starting today, Xbox Cloud Gaming is running on custom Xbox Series X hardware, and available to all @XboxGamePass Ultimate members with Windows 10 PCs and Apple phones and tablets, via browser, across 22 countries. https://t.co/HYuvbHGBUg#XboxGamePass

— Xbox Wire (@XboxWire) June 28, 2021

Cloud gaming is said to provide gamers with seamless play across all of their devices–whether your streaming from your PC or mobile device, your game will be playing from an Xbox hardware in a Microsoft datacenter. This essentially means that players will be able to jump into a game, play with friends on the go or on their PC while using the same Xbox network as their console.

Xbox Cloud Gaming or xCloud is Microsoft’s game streaming service. Available on Android, PCs, and iOS, Microsoft is now bringing the service to its game consoles including the last generation. Feb 15, 2021 xCloud articles on MacRumors.com. Microsoft has announced that following beta testing for a small group of users, it plans to launch its xCloud game streaming service on Apple devices via Safari.

On Xbox’s blog, the company stated that the gameplay on iOS devices and macOS will be just as powerful as playing on a console, as they ensure that xCloud users will experience fast load times, improved frame rates, and a high-quality experience. This key milestone to the Xbox experience is allowing gamers to bring the console experience directly to the devices they use daily.

I write software for Windows. Exclusively for Windows. These days, VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop are two very mature virtualization products that allow clients to run virtually any Windows software on the Mac. Right now I have a client reporting an issue under VMWare Fusion 5. It’s an important client, so I’d better support him. My options to reproduce the issue are to buy a Mac Mini, or try out a virtual mac hosting service.

I need the following things

• Root access. I need to install the software I want to test, including VMWare Fusion.
• OS X Mavericks. I need the latest version of the operating system.

I’m reviewing these services based on my needs of occasional full speed access for testing. If you’re after a dedicated server for an application like web hosting, you will have different needs than I have.

Here’s a list of all of the services that I could find offering roughly the kind of service I’m looking for.

Some of these services offer cheaper plans with a more limited feature set (e.g. no root access). I’ve chosen in most cases to review the cheapest plan that offers Mavericks and that offers root access to your VM.

I had every intention of trying out xcodeclub, vmosx and xcloud. However due to time constraints I ended up testing xcloud only.

xcloud is an offering from innofield who also provide the “Flow App Engine” (flow.ch).

Three plans are offered, all include Mavericks and root access. The cheapest one (“mini”) is 79 CHF, which is USD $~85/month at today’s exchange rates. For that you get 80gb storage, 2gb RAM, and 2 x 2.3GHz CPU cores.
No trial offered, but I asked for a 1 week trial via their contact form anyway. They were happy to oblige. I’ll be trailing a “pro” instance with 160gb storage, 4gb RAM and 4 virtual CPU cores.

Xcloud Osx

From the customer console, I am able to start and stop the virtual instance.

API Capabilities

A support engineer was kind enough to explain some of the capabilities of the snapshot API.

This is just as powerful as AWS or Azure, but it’s for Macs! Brilliant.

This API seems to be undocumented, I expect that this is a work in progress and that we’ll see more of this soon.

Documentation

Xcloud provides excellent documentation for some of the basics. The getting started guide covers every operating system you might consider connecting from. Some of the more common problems you might expect to encounter are well documented.

Connecting to the Instance

I imagine if you’re connecting from a Mac in the first place, this whole thing goes much smoother.

Right from the console, there’s a button to launch an HTML5 VNC client. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the HTML5 client to work. I tried Chrome, IE and Firefox. I got this error in every case.

I was able to connect just fine with TightVNC, however. My experience was pretty slow, but I attribute this to my own ADSL connection rather than anything to do with xcloud. This was just painfully slow.

To resolve this, the Xcloud documentation suggests installing TeamViewer. So I started an AWS windows instance, RDPd to it, installed TightVNC there, VNCd to the xcloud instance (RDP-to-AWS-to-VNC-to-xcloud is actually reasonably fast), installed TeamViewer, then connected via TeamViewer. Phew! Happily, this all works just fine.

The only improvement to this would be if xcloud installed TeamViewer by default. VNC from Windows is just too slow.

Testing

Network connection seems more than acceptable. I was able to download a 4gb ISO from MSDN in less than 20 minutes.

I have full root access, so installing VMWare Fusion was not a problem. I couldn’t install 64-bit Windows, but the 32-bit version went in just fine.

The performance of this VM seems to be very good. It has no problem running a VM within a VM. My performance bottleneck is clearly the Internet connection speed to my own office.

Xcloud Osx Download

Support

Xcloud Osx App

Xcloud support were quite responsive, and provided useful and timely answers to all of my questions.

Budget conscious? Xcodeclub might work out for you. But if you want a real killer go with xcloud for a few dollars more. You wont be disappointed.