Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Apple files a patent for on-demand cloud gaming services

Jon Silman
By

Apple has filed a patent for a cloud gaming-type streaming service similar to Google Stadia, Xbox Game Pass, and PlayStation Now.

The patent filed in February was first spotted by Patently Apple and published internationally on August 14. It’s called “Enabling Interactive Service for Cloud Rendering Gaming in 5G Systems.”

Recommended Videos

Apple is currently getting ready to introduce 5G phones in October, so a move into cloud gaming with 5G would make sense.

Related

“One potential use case for network controlled interactive service in fifth-generation (5G) wireless communication networks is cloud rendering game. Cloud gaming, (also known as gaming on demand) is a type of online gaming that allows direct and on-demand video streaming of games onto different computing devices through the use of a thin client,” the patent states.

The game would be stored, rendered, and executed on a remote server and streamed right onto a device, giving users access to the games without relying on the user’s own device.

“The controls and button presses from the user’s computing device are transmitted to the server, where they are recorded, and the server then sends back the game’s response to the input controls. Current 5G systems lack the capability to provide interactive services for cloud rendering gaming in efficient and optimal manners,” the patent said.

The patent also lists different ways to use the technology and how Apple would go about dealing with those situations.

For example, the patent states that “the cloud rendering gaming is an on-demand service. Efficiently and optimally managing network resources for provisioning the interactive service may require high-demand bandwidth and low latency, and as such, the 5G system may need a mechanism for access control and service authorization.”

Apple’s solution to this is an “interactive service subscription and service authorization to support on-demand cloud rendering gaming.”

The rest is fairly technical but mostly involves utilizing 5G technology in new ways to make sure the service runs as advertised.

Apple and gaming have been in the spotlight lately, as Apple and Epic Games have been battling over the cut Apple takes from developers in its App Store.

In the latest twist, Apple said it will cut Epic’s access to iOS and Mac development tools, a move that could have some serious consequences for Epic’s Unreal Engine.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jon Silman
Jon Silman
I ditched my consoles and went to cloud gaming for a week – here’s how it went
A table holding a DualSense controller, a DualSense Backbone, a regular Backbone, and an Xbox Series X controller.

Game streaming has felt like the "next big thing" in gaming for the past decade. I recall trying out services like OnLive back in my college dorm room, playing the same 30-minute trials over and over again. Half the time the service never booted, and the half that it did was a lag-filled mess. Fast forward a couple of years and Sony acquires Gaikai to integrate into PlayStation Now (RIP), but left it largely ignored until Xbox began its push into streaming with its Xcloud initiative. With major tech giants like Google and Amazon failing to crack the game streaming code, Sony and Microsoft appear to be the only two capable of supporting this console-less method of play.

For all the fancy talk about new servers and top-of-the-line streaming technology, I've never been convinced that game streaming would be able to replace the tried and true local experience. After all, even under perfect internet conditions, the speed of light is only so fast. And assuming even most people will have perfect internet conditions itself is laughable. However, I wanted to put my money where my mouth was. How could I judge game streaming if I didn't actually give it a shot?

Read more
Why cloud gaming is the linchpin in Microsoft’s troubled Activision Blizzard acqusition
Key art showing multiple devices playing games via the cloud.

The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) delivered a shocker this week when it blocked Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard on Wednesday. While a lot of focus on Microsoft’s fight was centered around whether or not the acquisition would give Xbox consoles an unfair advantage over PlayStation consoles, what ultimately decided it was a much smaller market: cloud gaming.
The idea of being able to stream the game you’re playing from the cloud has existed for well over a decade. Cloud gaming’s relevance to the video game industry has only grown over the past several years thanks to both failed and successful efforts from big tech companies like Google, Amazon, and, most importantly, Microsoft. Still, cloud gaming is considered relatively niche, with Activision Blizzard Bobby Kotick calling it "inconsequential" in an interview with Bloomberg and UCL Associate Profession Joost Rietveld saying it’s not a distinct market in a submission to the CMA.
Despite those pleas, the CMA claims that cloud gaming is a “nascent market” and that “already strong incumbent in this market even stronger” in its 418-page report on the matter. Following the CMA’s decision on Wednesday, I spoke to several different analysts to find more clarity about how big Microsoft is in the cloud gaming space and why the CMA should feel compelled to intervene. While experts mostly side with Microsoft over the CMA on this decision, one greater truth emerged from these discussions. Whether one thinks cloud gaming is relevant to this acquisition or not, this emergent style of gaming has reached a point of no return where it'll be instrumental to the video game industry going forward. 
Microsoft, king of cloud gaming
Cloud gaming may sound like a niche within the industry, but that's not entirely accurate. BrandFinance Managing Director Laurence Newell tells Digital Trends that “cloud-based services account for over 70% of Microsoft’s brand value, amounting to a staggering $137.5 billion.” That’s quite an eye-catching number that understandably would raise a regulator's alarm bells. However, Newell admits that gaming only makes up 8.5% of Microsoft’s revenue, and cloud gaming is an even smaller amount of that slice.
Despite its relatively small impact on the wider company, most of the experts I spoke to agreed that Microsoft has emerged as a cloud gaming leader thanks to its compatibility with a large segment of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate library. Conversely, Activision Blizzard has had almost no cloud gaming presence outside of one Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice port on Google Stadia before that service’s shutdown. If it were to be acquired, it is inevitable that more Activision Blizzard games would likely come to cloud-based gaming services.

Despite the shutdown of Google Stadia and the relatively small brand value received from cloud gaming compared to the rest of the company, the CMA still points out in the press release about its decision that “monthly active users in the U.K. more than tripled from the start of 2021 to the end of 2022. It is forecast to be worth up to 11 billion British pounds globally and 1 billion pounds in the U.K. by 2026.” Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the UCL School of Management Joost Rietveld, who has also been a consultant for Microsoft during its acquisition process, challenges the notion that cloud gaming as a whole is a single market.
Instead, Rietveld splits it into four categories, placing Xbox Game Pass into a category called “cloud gaming as a feature,” which is when it’s “offered as part of a consumer-facing distribution platform” or “included within a bigger bundle of services provided by the platformer.” Under Rietveld’s view, services like Nvidia GeForce Now, Ubitius, and EE -- all of whom Microsoft has made individual deals to bring Activision Blizzard and Xbox Game Studios titles to -- fall into different categories and thus shouldn’t be considered or directly compared to Xbox Game Pass. No matter how they’re categorized now, the real question mark looming over the technology is its future growth, according to Omdia Senior Principal Games Analyst Steve Bailey.
“Will it remain a niche additional service or become the gaming platform of the future?” Bailey asks in his statement to Digital Trends. “Our projection is that cloud gaming is growing rapidly (revenue should more than double by 2026), but it’s still a long way from taking over the games market, so it remains arguable either way.”
“Arguable” stands out as the keyword to me here. Like any emergent technology, we’re heavily debating the positives and negatives of cloud gaming, specifically through the lens of this acquisition. But what exactly is it that the CMA sees in Microsoft that worries them?
The CMA’s problem with Microsoft
“The CMA’s argument is not that acquiring Activision Blizzard would allow Microsoft to dominate the console market as a whole, where Sony and Nintendo have strong positions relative to Xbox, but only that it would help it to achieve a dominant position in cloud gaming specifically,” Bailey tells Digital Trends. “Microsoft and Activision Blizzard will likely argue that this is disproportionate, given the relatively small scale of the cloud gaming market.”

Read more
Netflix may bring its gaming service to TVs, with iPhones serving as controllers
The Netflix Games section.

Netflix is working on a feature that will bring its games to smart TVs and allow players to use their iPhone as a controller, reports from Bloomberg and MacRumors' Steve Moser said on Wednesday.

The move would take Netflix’s gaming service beyond only smartphones and tablets, giving subscribers more ways to play. And for iPhone owners, it also eliminates the need to buy a dedicated controller, making it more likely that people would give its games a go.

Read more