

Speaking of which: iOS devices will use a mobile web browser to access streaming while PC users will go directly through the Xbox app and browser. For 15 per month, you get an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. In September, a Microsoft representative said that the company's updated terms for Xbox cloud gaming, then known as xCloud, made for "a bad experience for customers." With Apple devices now getting Xbox cloud gaming in the first half of 2021, the two companies have seemingly reached a serviceable compromise on how the app will function on iOS. Xbox Cloud Gaming can finally stream to web browsers and iOS devices, but the experience is markedly different between the two platforms. The iOS release of Xbox cloud gaming, while inevitable, took some doing on Microsoft's part due to Apple's stringent streaming restrictions. This will cement Xbox Game Pass Ultimate as a competitor to dedicated streaming services like Google Stadia and Amazon Luna, which are also targeting PC users who don't have the beefiest gaming rigs. The PC release of Xbox Game Pass cloud gaming is no surprise given Microsoft's presence on the platform, but it is uniquely interesting in that PCs are most likely to be able to handle Xbox games without relying on cloud computing. While the Xbox Game Pass app is available on the Amazon App Store, it is similar to the iOS version of the app and does not include xCloud streaming functionality, and instead simply lets you. The company announced the service's expansion in a new blog post (opens in new tab) alongside a smattering of data, the most relevant point being that November 2020 Xbox Game Pass subscribers doubled the November 2019 engagement figures.
