Making good on a promise it made in 2021, Microsoft officially announced today that it is partnering with Samsung to create an Xbox App for the company’s smart TVs that will let anyone play Xbox games via the cloud, without the need to own an Xbox console.
Starting June 30, anyone with a “new Samsung 2022 smart TV” in 27 supported countries can download the Xbox App and start playing games via the cloud. Players will seemingly also need an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, except in the case of Fortnite. As announced previously, Microsoft and Epic worked out a deal to make Fortnite free to stream for everyone.
Microsoft understands that it cannot sell everyone a console because some people don’t want to or can’t spend the $300+ required to purchase the hardware. With the Xbox App for TVs, users will only need a Bluetooth controller, and it doesn’t even need to be an Xbox controller.
Similar to how Xbox streaming works on PC and mobile, players can use an Xbox controller or a DualShock controller, or other supported Bluetooth controllers. Bluetooth headsets are also supported for game audio and chat.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said, “We’re building a platform that can reach billions of players–whether it’s on console, whether it’s on PC, whether it’s through Xbox cloud streaming–where players on any device they want to play on should be able to find the content they want to play.”
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