Twenty % of Xbox Cloud Gaming gamers solely use contact controls

Over the previous 12 months, Microsoft has been steadily including customized Xbox contact controls to greater than 100 video games that may be streamed to Android and iOS telephones utilizing its Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service. While these controls could seem gimmicky to some, Microsoft is now revealing that 20 % of gamers use these contact controls completely.

“[Twenty] percent of our Xbox Cloud Gaming users use touch as their exclusive method of playing games,” explains Monty Hernandez, a senior program supervisor at Xbox. “As such, it’s important to us that the touch-enabled games we launch are relevant and, most importantly, play well with touch controls.”

It’s a shocking stat and there are even particular person video games the place 30 % of gamers use contact controls completely:

• Hades
• New Super Lucky’s Tale
• Yakuza: Like a Dragon
• Scarlet Nexus
• Dragon’s Quest XI
• Minecraft Dungeons
• Football Manager 2022 Xbox Edition

Given the quantity of utilization, it’s not shocking that recreation builders have been eager so as to add these customized contact controls over the previous 12 months. Microsoft has made it comparatively simple to take action, permitting recreation builders to construct on high of a sample layout from GitHub that may be personalized to every recreation.

“We’ve seen, on average, a 2x increase in usage for titles available via Xbox Cloud Gaming, across genres, that implement touch controls,” says Hernandez. Plenty of Xbox Cloud Gaming titles now have some spectacular contact controls, with customized styling and iconography that helps gamers who’re purely utilizing a touchscreen.

Xbox contact controls began off with Minecraft Dungeons help, earlier than increasing to 10 extra video games a month after the preliminary launch of xCloud. Microsoft has additionally been utilizing Xbox contact controls for its dual-screen Surface Duo handset, turning its Android-powered gadget into extra of a Nintendo 3DS with Xbox video games.

With greater than 100 video games now supporting these customized contact controls, and gamers apparently eager to make use of them, it’s clear we’re going to see many extra video games implement Xbox contact controls within the months forward.