Samsung’s cloud gaming hub brings Fortnite, Xbox, GeForce Now and Stadia to TVs
Samsung TVs are about to get extensive cloud gaming support through GeForce Now, Stadia, and Xbox, through the brand-new Samsung Gaming Hub software
Samsung is about to unleash the potential for cloud gaming onto a select number of their 2022 lineup of TVs. Dubbed the ‘Gaming Hub’, it’ll include Microsoft’s Xbox TV app, Nvidia’s GeForce Now, and Google’s struggling Stadia.
Samsung intends to bring cloud gaming to the forefront by allowing all companies, including Amazon Luna later this year, to co-exist on one platform. It’s free to access the hub, but you’ll need to subscribe to the different cloud gaming options to access them.
Fortnite will be free to access, but requires a Game Pass Ultimate subscription to play more than 100 games.
Xbox Cloud Gaming is included with Game Pass Ultimate memberships, which gives you access to a wide selection of games from the ever-expanding list from Game Pass. Microsoft has been really good with keeping that list fresh, with their 2022 lineup looking incredibly strong. The Xbox TV app will also be exclusive to Samsung TVs for the time being.
Read more: 20 best Xbox Game Pass games for PC & Console
Nvidia will be adding a selection of games to their platform for you to play:
- Alaloth: Champions of The Four Kingdoms
- Disgaea 6 Complete
- Card Shark
- KartKraft
- Hotline Miami
- NASCAR 21: Ignition
GeForce Now is inching closer and closer to being in the public eye. The service simulates a PC environment with the latest and greatest from Nvidia’s arsenal powering them.
Mostly focused on PC gaming, it is slowly introducing different ways to play outside of a controller or mouse and keyboard, and bringing touch controls to Fortnite after Apple banned it from iOS in their feud with Epic Games.
The oddest addition is Google Stadia, something that – yes, surprisingly – Google still supports. While they may have laid off their entire development team behind some Google Stadia exclusive games, the service is still alive in some capacity.
Stadia flopped due to it being a subscription service that required you to purchase games you wanted to play. Rather than take the Microsoft approach and chuck money at every developer to stock up on a library worth subscribing to, they instead offered paltry versions running on a distant cousin of Linux. Destiny 2 at medium settings on a PC, playing at 4K was not good. Twitch will also be shown in the hub.
However, as mentioned above, this is a limited feature for Samsung TVs under the 2022 model range. It’ll presumably be kept going with next year’s models too, but there’s no word on previous years receiving the update.
Cloud gaming has been in the works for years, with the first real consumer-level product being the ill-fated OnLive. Sony bought out Gaikai, a streaming company in 2012, which has only recently begun to see the fruits of its labor triumph with the sort-of-okay PlayStation Remote Play and PS Now. There is no word on if Sony plans to bring PlayStation to Samsung TVs.