Courtesy of Facebook Gaming
It has a monthly playerbase that would make any player in the cloud gaming space envious. An now, Facebook on Monday announced that’s it’s introducing cloud games to it’s monthly audience of over 380 million players.
It might seem easy to write off Facebook’s audience and reach as extending to primarily “casual” gamers, those who typically don’t invest in gaming-specific hardware, such as a console, and big-budget video games. But the beauty of cloud gaming is it sits in the Venn diagram right where hardcore can casual gaming overlap.
Right now, Facebook isn’t grooming a cloud gaming champion to take on the likes of Google Stadia or Amazon’s Luna, which just hit early access. Facebook’s Jason Rubin, VP of Play made it clear that cloud games will live alongside the social network’s HTML5 Instant Games.
“All cloud-streamed games are playable in the same way you play games now on Facebook — whether it’s in our Gaming tab or from News Feed,” said Rubin in a blog post. “No special hardware or controllers needed – your hands are the controllers since we’re launching with native mobile games. And you can play these games with a mouse and keyboard on desktop.”
The Facebook cloud games are already supported on Android and the web, with iOS support somewhere over the horizon. Rubin stated its limited availability on platforms and regions has already seen 200,000 player a week over the last few weeks.
Though Facebook isn’t revealing any plans to launch big budget games on in the cloud, there’s no denying that the company is building something massive here.
Arriving alongside the new cloud games are several additions that hint at where Facebook’s gaming aspiration are venturing:
While the potential to compete in hardcore cloud gaming is there, Rubin said the company still believes cloud gaming has a way to go before it can begin to replace traditional consoles – it’s Redmond, Wash. and Silicon Valley rivals seem to think it’s not that far off, however.
“We love console and PC gaming and both formats will be around for a long time,” stated Rubin. “We believe cloud gaming will increase — not replace — the options to jump into great games. We’re not trying to replace your phone either.”
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