Cloud gaming means the game doesn’t run on your computer or console but on a machine in a data center. Video and audio flow to you over the internet, and your button presses travel in the opposite direction. That means you don’t need a gaming PC, just a device that can play video and a fast enough connection.
The catch lies elsewhere. Two completely different business models hide under one name, and a lot of people subscribe to a different one than they expected.
How cloud gaming works
A server in the data center renders a frame of the game exactly the way the graphics card in your computer would. Instead of sending it to a monitor, though, it encodes it into video and sends it over the network. Your phone, TV or browser decodes the video and displays it. When you press a button, that information travels back to the data center, gets applied to the game there, and the result only comes back to you in the next frame.
So every action you take makes a round trip. This one paragraph explains nearly everything good and bad that can be said about cloud gaming: why you can play demanding games on a five-year-old TV, and also why Counter-Strike plays badly in the cloud.
Two models that get mixed up
The first model is a subscription catalog. You pay a monthly fee and get access to several hundred games you can download or stream. That’s how Xbox Game Pass works, and so does PlayStation Plus in its Premium tier. The same principle, just split into paid channels, is behind Amazon Luna and the list of countries where it runs, although it can’t be used in Czechia.
The second is renting computing power. The service doesn’t give you any games, it lends you a remote computer. You bring the games from your own Steam, Epic or Xbox account. That’s how GeForce NOW and Boosteroid work.
| Subscription catalog | Renting computing power | |
|---|---|---|
| Which services | Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus Premium | GeForce NOW, Boosteroid |
| What you pay for | access to the service’s library | time on a remote computer |
| Where the games come from | from a catalog put together by the operator | from your Steam, Epic or Xbox account |
| What happens when you cancel | the catalog games disappear | you keep your games, you just have nothing to run them on |
| A new game the catalog doesn’t have | you can’t play it | you buy it and play |
The line between the models isn’t perfectly sharp. Xbox can also stream selected games you own outside Game Pass, and PlayStation Plus Premium streams some titles bought on the PS Store in addition to its catalog. The core of the offer still holds, though: Game Pass sells a library, GeForce NOW sells a remote graphics card.
What you need
The list of devices is similar across all services and intentionally broad. Xbox Cloud Gaming runs on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles, on Windows PCs, on Android and Apple phones and tablets, on selected Samsung and LG TVs, on Amazon Fire TV, on Meta headsets and in the browser at xbox.com/play. Boosteroid also adds macOS, Linux and Chromebooks.
None of the big services has a native app on iPhone and iPad. You play through the browser, and with Boosteroid you add a shortcut to your home screen via the Share menu.
So the only real hardware requirement is a controller. Touch controls are supported only by some games.
The experience depends on latency, not connection speed
Download speed tells you how much data flows through per second. Latency tells you how long it takes for the first bit of it to arrive. For streaming a movie the first value matters, for gaming the second – and you can’t buy it with a plan. It mainly depends on how far away from you the server is.
Speed still has to be sufficient. For GeForce NOW, NVIDIA recommends 25 Mbps for Full HD at 60 FPS and 65 Mbps for 5K at 120 FPS. For streaming in PlayStation Plus, Sony lists a minimum of 5 Mbps and 15 Mbps for 1080p.
Three things that actually affect latency:
- Cable instead of Wi-Fi. If a cable isn’t an option, at least use the 5 GHz band.
- Distance to the data center. Boosteroid has expanded its infrastructure into a Czech Radiocommunications data center, so it has servers right in Czechia. NVIDIA doesn’t publish a list of its European data centers, and nothing in its materials indicates a Czech or Slovak server exists.
- Nothing else on the line. An update downloading on another computer shows up in the cloud right away.
Who the cloud will never be right for
Competitive shooters. In CS2, Valorant or Rainbow Six, fights are decided in tens of milliseconds, and the frame’s trip to the data center and back gets added to your monitor’s response time no matter what connection you have. The same goes for fighting games, where you block on a specific frame. For a campaign, RPG or strategy game it doesn’t matter, for a ranked match it does.
The second group is people who play with mods. You don’t manage the remote computer yourself, so changes to game files are either impossible or limited to what the service allows.
The third is mobile connections with a data cap.
How much it costs when you don’t buy a computer
Prices vary by model and by region, so specific amounts belong in the articles about individual services. Roughly: in Czechia, Microsoft says Game Pass plans start at CZK 239 a month, with PlayStation Plus the annual Premium tier with cloud streaming costs CZK 4,000, GeForce NOW has a free tier with ads before playing, and Boosteroid starts at €7.49 a month with an annual subscription, but it has no free version.
More important than the monthly amount is the cap on hours played, because in 2026 it showed up almost everywhere. GeForce NOW gives you 100 hours a month on paid plans, with at most 15 unused hours rolling over to the next month. On 3 September 2026, Microsoft announced that starting in November 2026, cloud gaming in Game Pass will be limited to 5 hours on Essential, 10 on Premium and 15 on Ultimate, with the option to buy more time in the Xbox Store. Microsoft itself estimates the change will affect roughly 4% of subscribers. Details on NVIDIA’s plans are in the article on GeForce NOW prices and limits.
Where to start based on what you already have
- You have a Steam library and a weak computer. Go with renting computing power. You don’t have to buy anything twice.
- You want to play but have nothing to play. A catalog subscription gives you hundreds of games for a monthly fee.
- You have a PS5. In Czechia, cloud gaming in PlayStation Plus is tied to the PS5 and the PlayStation Portal, not to a phone or computer.
- You have an older console. On Xbox One, streaming is the only way to run games made for Series X|S. With PlayStation the situation is different, and we cover it in the article on whether the PS4 still makes sense today.
- You’re considering buying instead of subscribing. A cheaper console works out better after a few years than any stream, see the comparison of Xbox Series X and Series S or PS5 and PS5 Pro.
FAQ
No. All the computing happens on the server, your device just plays video and sends your inputs back. It works on an office laptop, a phone, a TV or an older console. Instead of performance, you need a stable connection and a controller.
It depends on the service. Game Pass and PlayStation Plus Premium include a catalog of games in the subscription price. GeForce NOW and Boosteroid have no catalog, they run games from your Steam, Epic or Xbox account. If you subscribe to the second type and don’t own any games, you won’t be able to play anything.
NVIDIA recommends 25 Mbps for Full HD at 60 FPS and 65 Mbps for 5K at 120 FPS, while Sony lists a minimum of 5 Mbps and 15 Mbps for 1080p. Stability is just as important: latency spikes ruin gaming more than lower speed does.
Yes, but through the browser. Neither Xbox Cloud Gaming nor Boosteroid has a native iOS app. With Boosteroid, you add a shortcut to your home screen via the Share menu and launch it from there.
We don’t recommend it for ranked shooters and fighting games. The delay caused by the frame’s trip to the data center and back adds to your display’s response time, and it’s noticeable in fights that are decided in tens of milliseconds. For story games, RPGs or strategy games, the cloud is a full-fledged replacement.
Information verified as of 11 September 2026. Game Pass hour limits change in November 2026 and service pricing varies by region, so check the amount directly with the provider before you buy. More articles about cloud services are published in the cloud gaming section on Gamers Together.