Gaming

The Best Game Streaming Services


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Game streaming offers an enticing alternative to buying either physical or digital games. Aside from the cost of maintaining a subscription to a streaming service being significantly lower than purchasing new games outright, streaming services also allow you to jump into the action without waiting for huge installations and updates.

In the past, streaming services like OnLive failed to catch on and that’s because game streaming isn’t for everyone. However, for players with a good, consistent internet connection and a penchant for jumping from game to game without plans to return to any one title, it’s the perfect option.

Here are some of the best game streaming services you can try right now, with some game recommendations to give you a sense of the games you’ll get to play on each one.

Sony has some of the best first-party video games around, but you previously needed to own one of the company’s consoles in order to play them. With PlayStation Now, you can play a wide variety of exclusive PlayStation games from your PC or your PlayStation 4.

On PC, all you need is a DualShock 4 controller with either a wireless adapter or USB mini cable as well as a PlayStation Network account and at least 5 Mbps of internet download speed. PlayStation 4 users need the same internet speed on their game console, and with either a seven-day free trial or a paid subscription, you’re ready to play the best PlayStation exclusives.

For PS4 players, a PlayStation Now subscription includes full access to multiplayer support, even if you have not subscribed to PlayStation Plus. Your save files will be compatible on both PC and PS4.

Additionally, the service added a feature included with Xbox Game Pass: The ability to download games and play them directly on your system. More than 250 PlayStation 4 games are eligible for download and support DLC and other features you would get in the standard digital versions. It’s likely you’ll never need to download them, but doing so in case your internet goes out will let you still enjoy your favorites.

PlayStation Now currently features some older PlayStation exclusives, including Killzone: Shadow Fall, The Last of Us, Until Dawn, and God of War III: Remastered. It also supports a number of third-party games, such as Dishonored, Batman: Arkham Origins, BioShock Infinite, and Saints Row IV.

New games are added every month and the full catalog now includes more than 600 titles. PlayStation Now costs $20 for a one-month subscription or $45 for a three-month subscription.

Own a Mac or a low-end PC, but want to play the latest AAA games? With GeForce Now, you can play the latest and greatest from major publishers without having to worry about your computer catching fire or, worse, running Bootcamp.

GeForce Now is not a content service like many of the other services on our list. You have to purchase the games you want to play through a digital store, such as Steam, Uplay, or Blizzard’s Battle.net. Once you’ve installed the app on your machine, GeForce’s cloud-based processors will allow you to run the game on any device, independent of their specs.

The service requires a higher internet download speed than GameFly Streaming — 25 Mbps minimum and 50 Mbps recommended — and you must have MacOS 10.10 or higher or Windows 7 64-bit or later in order to run it. Either an Ethernet connection or a Wi-Fi connection using a 5 GHz router is required, and you can use either a mouse-and-keyboard setup or one of several gamepads. Sessions are currently capped at four hours per player before you have to start a new session in order to keep the servers available for other players.

GeForce now is compatible with a huge assortment of games, though you do have to buy them in order to use them with the service. The list includes Assassin’s Creed Origins, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Injustice 2, Sid Meier’s Civilization VI, and Middle-earth: Shadow of War, to name a few. GeForce Now is currently in beta testing and is free for users during the trial period. You can sign up for the waitlist on the official website.

The other game streaming services on our list focus primarily on big-budget AAA games from major publishers. That’s great and all, but there are times when you’re more interested in playing an independent game from a small studio instead, and Jump is the perfect service to do it.

Jump provides a latency-free game streaming service the company says is on par with what you expect from a game fully installed on your device. Whether you’re gaming on a Windows PC, Linux PC, or Mac, you can play the service’s library of games.

It also supports both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive headsets. Save data is stored in the cloud, so you can always pick up right where you left off, even if you switch devices. Another neat feature: There are no microtransactions in any of Jump’s games.

The one caveat with Jump is that the technology used — dubbed “HyperJump” — uses your local system hardware in order to run games. This means your system will have to be capable of playing the game, though the majority of the games offered through Jump aren’t particularly taxing.

The roster of games you can play with Jump — all of which are included in the $5 monthly subscription cost — includes well-known indie games such as Cook, Serve, Delicious!, Gunhouse, Nidhogg, and The End is Nigh.

New games are added every month, and 70 percent of the proceeds go back to the developers whose games are included in the Jump library. You can try a two-week free trial, and subscriptions can be canceled at any time.

Honorable mentions

The other services on our list rely on streaming technology to deliver you your games, but Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass works a little differently. For $10 per month, a subscription to Xbox Game Pass gives you access to more than 100 games, and you download them onto your Xbox One’s storage device just like you would with any other digital game.

This means you don’t have to worry about your internet speed affecting the quality of your game experience, and even if you lose your connection, you’ll still be able to play games.

And the games — the games. Xbox Game Pass has perhaps the best library of free games of any service on our list. From Rise of the Tomb Raider to Gears of War 4, nearly every notable Xbox One game you can think of is included through the program, and a selection of Xbox 360 games are also available through backward compatibility. It isn’t limited to Microsoft-published games, either, with a variety of third-party games also available.

The kicker, however, is Microsoft’s policy for future Xbox exclusives. All first-party Xbox games going forward will be included with an Xbox Game Pass subscription at no extra charge on launch day. Sea of Thieves is available as are big-name games like Crackdown 3 and State of Decay 2.

Google took a leap into the game streaming business with Project Stream, a service currently undergoing a closed beta test into early 2019. At this time, pricing information has not been revealed, with Google allowing a small number of applicants into the service to test it for several months ahead of its official launch.

You don’t need to download any extra software to run Project Stream. Instead, all you have to do is go to the service’s site through Google Chrome on your computer, sign into the account that has been given access, and begin playing. Right now, the only game available is Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which supports traditional controllers and mouse-and-keyboard setups right in Chrome.

Project Stream suggests at least 25 Mbps download speed, and we didn’t encounter any hitches or lag during our time playing Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. That being said, the visual quality isn’t quite as sharp as if the game were running natively on your machine, but that’s a small price to pay for being able to play it on practically anything, all while your save data is stored in the cloud. With a larger number of games to choose from, Project Stream could become a formidable rival to traditional PC gaming.







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