Europe is shattering Apple’s barriers to cloud gaming. As the Digital Market Act (DMA), a new European regulation, arrives, the American company is relaxing its rules regarding the App Store. Cloud gaming will be able to be fully deployed on the iPhone and the rest of the Apple ecosystem.
There was a time when Apple was hostile to cloud gaming. But that was before. With the upcoming arrival of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in Europe, the dams are breaking on the side of the Cupertino company. The American company announced a cascade of changes on January 25. The App Store, browsers, payments and even Apple Pay are affected.
Cloud gaming is also affected. Its principle is known to gamers, but perhaps not to others: it involves launching the video game remotely, on the servers of a company offering games on demand. Thus, the part is not executed locally, but on remote infrastructures. Hence the notion of game in the clouds.
The advantage of cloud gaming is to shift the IT effort to other third-party installations. Only the final rendering (i.e. the overall image) is streamed to the user’s terminal. This video stream thus saves the performance of a PC or console. This is especially very interesting for a less “powerful” smartphone.
Thus, the iPhone will be primarily affected by these upheavals. “ Apple offers new options for […] game streaming […]. Developers can now offer a single application capable of streaming all the games offered in their catalog “, we read in the group’s press release.
Much more enjoyable cloud gaming on iPhone
The consumer electronics giant does not mention any cloud gaming names in particular, but it is not difficult to guess which ones will slip very quickly into the now open breach. Native applications for iOS such as Nvidia’s GeForce Now and Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming should appear on the App Store. (Let’s spare a thought for Stadia, which will never benefit from it).
In turn, the opening of cloud gaming will go beyond iOS. The Cupertino company’s other systems (Apple TV, iPad) will also adapt ahead of March 6, the date of application of the Digital Market Act. The DMA’s mission is to curb platforms to prevent them from having a harmful effect on competition. This is good news for Apple TV, which will finally be able to compete with consoles.
In the case of GeForce Now, for example, the platform has until now benefited from everything necessary to launch, on the computer side, on Windows, macOS, ChromeOS, and on the mobile side, on Android. Dedicated programs exist each time. But for iOS, the manipulation required juggling with the Safari web browser, published by Apple. On iOS, Apple presented GeForce Now as a competitor to the App Store.
In terms of user experience, using a web app is much less attractive than a classic application available from the App Store. It is also a path that is less easy to access for players, and less intuitive. In fact, these services were more convenient to use on a smart TV than on the iPhone.
Special feature of Apple’s announcement on cloud gaming: it is the only one that will have a global impact. All other measures taken by the Californian group are limited to the European market. In any case, as long as other countries and continents do not take measures similar to the DMA to remove these obstacles.
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