– How does cloud gaming work, and how is it profitable?

Question

I know the very basics. Cloud gaming uses the equipment of a provider to run the game, and it is streamed to the customer. This is where my knowledge ends and confusion begins. Let’s say you are playing an Xbox game. If you use Microsoft’s Xbox, those aren’t cheap. And you are only paying a small monthly fee, so how is it profitable? Wouldn’t you have to play for years to cover the cost of the equipment that is actually running the game?

In: 2

Answer 1

Well apart from the points /u/kanadran covered you already answered your own question

>Wouldn’t you have to play for years to cover the cost of the equipment that is actually running the game?

That’s the plan. The long term goal for streaming services is that the customers don’t own gaming machines but are subscribed to their service all the time. They don’t expect people to subscribe for two months and then drop it.