Xbox

No worries. It’s a mix of both. If the kids are watching TV, I’ll stream direct from the Xbox. If we’re playing a game like Forza, then they’ll be on the Xbox with their own accounts, and I’ll be using cloud gaming to join them.

Although they have their own accounts, they’re set up under Microsoft Family (or whatever Microsoft have branded it this week) to be in my family, but I don’t think that has any bearing on the setup.

I have a Game Pass Ultimate subscription and there’s only one Xbox in the household, and that has both theirs and my account on it. So they can be signed in and playing online on the Xbox, and have access to all the Game Pass games, and I can sign into cloud gaming on another device.

Since I’m the account holder for Game Pass, if I were playing on the Xbox, they wouldn’t be able to use cloud gaming, so the only way we get to play Game Pass multiplayer games (with one subscription) is if they’re on the Series X, and I’m on cloud.

Edit: one last thing - cloud gaming is pretty flawless for me (for the most part). Something like Rocket League is tricky because the unavoidable extra lag makes all the difference, but most games I’m interested in are unaffected. I have a decent network setup though (for the UK), with fibre to the premises, and multiple wireless access points all wired directly to the main router, so the whole house gets about 300Mbps down and 50Mbps up, with a decent ping. The Xbox is also wired directly to the router. Ensuring the WiFi is adequate wherever you’re playing is the biggest factor.

To be honest, I’m rarely gaming for long enough for it to be a problem. It’s come in ideal for when one of the kids is using the Xbox on the TV, and they want to play a game like Forza with me, so I’m generally lying on the sofa playing with the controller on my lap, where the weight’s not an issue. It’s not exactly a Switch mind you, but it’s far more preferable to the phone and Backbone combo I was using previously.