Hit iPhone controller Backbone One scores Xbox Game Pass partnership at xCloud’s iOS launch today – TechCrunch

Backbone One, the killer iPhone game pad I profiled here late last year has just scored the mother of all tie-ups for a gaming accessory. It’s getting bundled with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate as it launches on iOS today alongside the xCloud game streaming service.

As a part of the deal, Backbone is being bundled with Xbox Game Pass in a new retail packaging that gets the Designed for Xbox stamp, making a Backbone + iPhone combo the closest thing we’ve ever seen to a portable Xbox. 

In my last piece I noted how Backbone cleverly used the accessory APIs built into iOS to offer super slick functionality for its cross-game dashboard. It’s been updating that dashboard to get better about showing you games, exposing you to new games and letting you use its clipping features to share killer plays with your friends. It’s one of the best gaming apps I’ve seen on iOS in years, and it has big potential to create a cross-universe place to play for the biggest gaming audience in the world. 

The Capture Button on Backbone One works with Xbox Cloud Gaming and lets you share it as a link. There’s also a new Xbox Game Pass feed and a way to move between Xbox and iOS games in the same interface. There’s  also a big callout for Xbox Remote Play, a feature that’s still super-under-utilized and actually quite good on current gen consoles. 

And the package even makes use of an AppClip to display an AR version of Backbone running xCloud for people happening on the retail packaging at a store. 

The Backbone team continues to impress with its slick and clever integrations and solid instincts. The game controller pedigree of the team shows (some original Xbox 360 controller team members worked on Backbone) but the software aspects are the most impressive. The way that Backbone unifies gaming experiences across AAA iOS ports like Warzone or Minecraft, Xbox and Playstation Remote Play and now native xCloud games feels like the way of the future for mobile gaming in a way that none of the individual players, including Apple, has managed to get right. 

Even though xCloud games are web based they are treated and presented as native apps inside Backbone’s really well done dashboard. I’ve personally played a lot of Destiny 2 over Stadia on Backbone and it feels fantastic, I can’t wait for it to be more directly integrated into the dash with clipping and social like the Xbox cloud titles are today. 

The experience of discovering, downloading and playing a game is better with a Backbone installed than even Apple Arcade now that the team is getting more into curation. They’ve also got a really slick linking mechanism that allows you to download apps right from the App Store if you see a clip of them being shared on your feed. This is how internet native players want to find and play new games — a continuously hyperlinked world of games and streams that makes it possible to see, follow and play without having to stop to manually search for anything.  

It’s also making me yearn for a time when discovering games goes beyond ‘downloading’ them and into a world where I can see a clip shared by a friend, tap on it and be playing a single level or match that gets me hooked before having to go buy the game. It would be a killer acquisition onramp for new players. 

The Microsoft tie up means that someone who purchases the Backbone for $99 from its website or at Microsoft Stores today gets 3 months of Game Pass Ultimate, making this the absolute best deal for new customers considering GPU is $45 alone. That’s bound to be a huge boost for Backbone as a young gaming startup. 

Source link

The post Hit iPhone controller Backbone One scores Xbox Game Pass partnership at xCloud’s iOS launch today – TechCrunch appeared first on Chop News.



from Chop News https://ift.tt/3dp3Uin

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Where To Find Undetected Black Ops Cold War Hacks? | RVCJS

Image
Black Ops Cold War hacks are highly popular and there’s absolutely no question about it. If you regularly play the game on PC, there’s no doubt you haven’t encountered at least a few players that have used said Cold War hacks. You’ve probably thought about using them too at least once or twice, but haven’t done so because of a fear of getting banned. Luckily, there’s now a great solution for that which we’ll be discussing more about today. This solution is undetected Cold War hacks.  The Key Points to Keep in Mind Hacks for Cold War are very popular, but it’s very risky to use them.  Once you get banned, there’s no chance of recovering your account, which is why undetected hacks are a necessity.  Not all ‘’undetected’’ are truly undetected. You have to clearly decide which of them you choose.  Battlelog.co is the most trustable cheat provider of all in this department, as they offer truly amazing undetected Black Ops Cold War hacks .    Ho...
Read more

How to Manage Your Spinal Cord Injury in Arizona

Image
How to Manage Your Spinal Cord Injury in Arizona:  Arizona is a prosperous state in the United States, with a population of more than seven million people in 2019. It has a robust economy with an unemployment rate of 5.1% during the year. The state also posted a 2.7% job growth in 2018-2019, mainly driven by its healthcare industry. One of the growing segments in the state’s healthcare sector is medical cannabis. Experts recommend it to treat ailments like chronic pain and spinal cord injuries (SCI). However, you need to have a medical marijuana card in Arizona to buy medical cannabis legally. How to Manage Your Spinal Cord Injury in Arizona When to Seek Medical Help for Your SCI The National Spinal Cord Injury Association claimed an estimated 450,000 Americans are living with SCI. Also, there are around 17,000 new SCI cases in the U.S. every year. If you are an SCI sufferer, you should go to the hospital immediately if you experience one or more of the following symptoms af...
Read more

Jaydev Compares Cutting Beans With Pujara’s Ranji Final Innings, Gets A Hilarious Reply From Him | RVCJS

Image
The Indian cricketers are presently sitting inside their houses as the coronavirus outbreak has compelled each one of us to remain indoors to save ourselves from getting infected. While some players are getting active on social media networks and interacting with their fans or colleagues, several others are letting their fans know how they are spending time in the 21 days lockdown period. Indian cricketer Jaydev Unadkat under whose captaincy the Saurashtra team won the Ranji Trophy recently took to the micro-blogging site Twitter and posted a photo in which he showed the vegetables that he chopped. He also wrote heartwarming message for his mother as she has done such things infinite times but never showed off. Jaydev Unadkat’s tweet read, “By, Yours truly.. To, The Mother.. (who does it infinite times without any such show-off & appreciation)  #QuarantineLife” By, Yours truly.. To, The Mother.. (who does it infinite times without any such show-off & appreciation) #Q...
Read more