Quick Summary
Amazon has partnered with Microsoft to bring Xbox Cloud Gaming to Fire TV Sticks.
That gives you access to 100s of Xbox games to play for a single monthly fee – you don't need a separate games console.
No sooner than I'd written a piece on Xbox ditching its own streaming device, where I suggested it partnered with Amazon to add Xbox Cloud Gaming to Fire TV devices, than I got notification that Amazon has partnered with Xbox to... well, you get the picture.
Life has a funny way of doing that sort of thing sometimes.
Owners of the latest Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max and Fire TV Stick 4K models can now download an Xbox app from the Amazon Appstore and connect with Microsoft's cloud gaming platform.
All you need is an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription and a compatible Bluetooth controller and away you go. And, with Game Pass available for just £1 / $1 for the first 14 days, you can try it before having to pay the full fee.
Xbox Cloud Gaming gives you access to 100s of Xbox games, some of which among the very best available today. The library is regularly updated to include new titles, with all of Xbox Game Studios' own releases added on the same day as the general release.
That includes the likes of Starfield, Forza Motorsport, and the recently-released Senua's Sage: Hellblade II. There are plenty of third-party games added from launch, too.
As with Amazon's own Luna service, which is also available on Fire TV, Xbox Cloud Gaming uses a myriad of data centres around the world that host the games, so bar the Xbox app you don't need to download anything else.
Your controller codes go in one direction over the internet, while video of the gameplay comes back the other way. Latency is dramatically reduced in comparison with other similar platforms released over the years, and is getting better all the time.
Indeed, it is hard to tell when a game is being played over the cloud these days.
Prior to the Amazon tie-in, Xbox Cloud Gaming was only available on Microsoft's own consoles, computers, mobile devices, and Samsung Smart TVs.
Hopefully, this latest partnership is a sign of the service expanding to other streaming devices we already have in our homes.
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