Facebook begins its own cloud gaming efforts

While Microsoft, Amazon and Google are taking bigger swings at the cloud gaming market, Facebook is taking baby steps. This week, the company announced that it would be bringing cloud streaming to its existing Facebook Gaming service. 

Facebook Gaming hopes to “make it easier to play games instantly”. This will be achieved through a library of ‘instant play' games, which stream to Android on the Facebook app. One big example would be Asphalt 9, a free-to-play racing game that you would typically have to download to play.

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So… what IS 'cloud gaming', anyway?

Is it replacing your console with a controller and a subscription? For some, maybe.

Or…maybe you could grab your phone. Open an app. Find a game. Play it. No controllers. No subscriptions.

— Facebook Gaming (@FacebookGaming) October 26, 2020

Jason Rubin, head of Oculus Gaming, recently moved positions within Facebook, joining Facebook Gaming as ‘VP of Play'. One of his first moves in this new position is rolling out cloud gaming.

There are no subscriptions or hardware requirements, it is a complementary add-on to expand Facebook Gaming further. Whether or not that changes in the future remains to be seen.

KitGuru Says: Streaming mobile games seems like a low bar to set, especially when other tech companies are bringing huge-scale Triple A titles to smartphones, TVs and PCs. Still, it is early days, so it will be interesting to see how Facebook tries to grow this platform moving forward. 

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