In June, our guide Tom tested the Xbox Game Pass on a Samsung smart TV, and described the experience as “almost flawless.” Over the course of half an hour, I streamed about half a dozen different games and found the experience almost indistinguishable from playing on a console. However, I also realized that I was testing the product under ideal conditions:
“It’s worth noting that I was only streaming a few minutes out of each match,” she wrote. “The real test will be to see how the games hold up during long gaming sessions. It will also be useful to see if wireless connections yield similar results, given that not every entertainment center is within reach of a router arm.”
A few weeks ago, Tom’s Guide got a Samsung Odyssey Ark, a hybrid TV/game monitor, shipped to our office. This means that I can finally test the Xbox Game Pass app under more realistic conditions. As I had hoped, streaming games directly to your Smart TV is an acceptable alternative to the Xbox Series X/S — and as I feared, it still lacks a dedicated controller.
What Xbox Cloud Games Get Right
To stand toe-to-toe with console experience, Xbox Cloud Gaming must first install the basics. This means that it will need to offer games that I actually wanted to play, make them easy to operate, and play them with as little friction as possible. Fans of cloud gaming will be pleased to hear that the Xbox Game Pass on Samsung Smart TVs succeeded on all three counts.
To stream Xbox games to a Samsung Smart TV, you need two things apart from the TV itself: an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription ($15 per month) and a Bluetooth controller (the official Xbox console costs $60). From there, simply download the Xbox Game Pass app to your TV, sign in to your Microsoft account and go to your game. We tested Wi-Fi at 136Mbps down and 228Mbps, well above Microsoft’s recommended 10Mbps bandwidth.
Currently, Xbox Game Pass offers over 350 streaming games, from new games like Return to Monkey Island and Persona 5 Royal, to classics like Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Dragon Age: Origins. As such, the Xbox Cloud Gaming passed the first test: I could easily find something I wanted to play. I settled on Immortals: Fenyx Rising, an open world action/adventure game from Ubisoft.
Next, I needed to actually run the game, which turned out to be as easy as a console. You have downloaded the Xbox Game Pass app on the Samsung Odyssey Ark; I am logged into my account; I browsed the Xbox Game Pass library until I came to Immortals; I clicked on the game and waited for it to load. The whole process cannot take more than two minutes.
Finally – and most importantly – the Immortals had to play smoothly, without any input lag, lag or major graphical issues. I played the game for about three hours, repeating what a long gaming session at home might feel like. During that time, I was able to jump, climb, and skate my way around the colorful world of Greek myth, fighting enemies and solving puzzles as I went. While the experience wasn’t quite perfect, I would have been perfectly happy with the experience, especially if I didn’t have an Xbox Series X as a point of comparison.
However, I had an Xbox Series X on hand. And when I switched over to the custom console, I started seeing cracks in the Xbox Cloud Gaming.
What goes wrong with Xbox Cloud games
First of all, the game on Xbox Cloud Gaming doesn’t look as good as the Xbox Series X/S. Currently, games on Xbox Game Pass are maxed out at 1080p and 60fps. Games on Xbox Series X can go up to 4K / 120 fps, while the S Series supports 1440p / 120 fps. The Immortals on Xbox Series X looked sharper, more detailed, and more fluid. But the most noticeable difference between the two versions of the game was the color palette. Xbox controllers support HDR, which is important for a game like Immortals, which features cartoon character designs and a plethora of vibrant blues, pinks, and greens.
Furthermore, while Immortals was playing smoothly via Xbox Cloud Gaming, this performance came at a cost. The game suffered from constant blurriness, particularly in background textures. Moving the camera around usually results in a few tiles in the background that can’t catch up with the rest of the screen. The introduction was mostly in focus, so the game didn’t ruin any significant platforming or combat challenges. But he was incredibly distracting and killed any sense of immersion the Immortals had accumulated.
Another problem that has come up is that smart TVs, even ultra-luxurious ones like the Odyssey Ark, are not primarily gaming systems. Games are a secondary app, and sometimes, they won’t work properly. The second time I launched the Xbox Game Pass app, it refused to load at all, and turning the TV on and off again wouldn’t fix the problem. In the end, I had to clear the TV cache (which was surprisingly difficult; it buried about six menus deep) and log in again from scratch. If your Xbox boots up and simply refuses to play games, there must be a critical system error.
Finally, I didn’t realize how poorly Xbox Cloud Gaming could sound. Something about the audio compression in the streaming service made the dialogue, sound effects, and music in Immortals sound more fuzzy and metallic than I expected. Once I moved to the Xbox Series X with its 3D audio capabilities, the game’s audio work sounded clearer, and the music sounded more realistic.
As for the Xbox Cloud Gaming credit, I didn’t experience any major issues while trying to play a big budget game of the current generation. But I had a whole bunch of smaller issues, and I didn’t realize how annoying these issues were until I went back to my regular console.
Xbox Cloud Game Predictions
I don’t want to short sell Xbox Cloud Gaming, or protest too much about it. It’s not entirely fair to compare the beta streaming service to the console that was released for two years – and the console family that has been decommissioned for 21 years, and on top of that, Microsoft has never promised complete parity between Xbox Cloud gaming and the full console experience. If you already have an Xbox console, or a powerful gaming PC, there is no compelling reason to switch to cloud gaming.
However, part of the beauty of Xbox Game Pass is that you don’t have to choose one or the other. When I switched between the Xbox app and the Xbox console, my saved files synced quickly and automatically. I can expect the Xbox Game Pass smart TV app to be a boon for traveling gamers, who don’t want to pack an entire Xbox console in their luggage, but don’t mind taking a console to a relative’s hotel or home.
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 place, just a few months after its launch. Dedicated gamers will want to stick with their Xbox for now, but the day more casual gamers decide to give up consoles entirely may not be so far off.
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