SK Telecom and MS Launch Xbox Cloud Gaming in Korea

[Asia Economy Reporter Koo Chae-eun] SK Telecom and Microsoft (MS) will launch 'Xbox Cloud Gaming' on September 15. This comes about a year after the two companies declared a 'global super-collaboration' in the cloud gaming business.

SK Telecom and MS announced last year that they would jointly pursue a 5G cloud gaming business. Since then, they have maintained close cooperation to launch cloud gaming. Starting from October last year, they began the world's first field test and are operating a pilot service exclusively among domestic telecom operators. In January this year, they also jointly held MS's first cloud gaming developer event in Korea.

The 'Xbox Game Pass Ultimate' launching in September will offer over 100 Xbox games for a monthly fee of 16,700 KRW, as well as 'Xbox Live Gold,' a feature that allows simultaneous gameplay with friends. Users can enjoy various games anytime and anywhere for a monthly fee lower than the purchase price of a single game title. Customers of telecom operators other than SK Telecom can also use the service. To enhance user convenience, SK Telecom is preparing an additional service bundled with an official Xbox controller to coincide with the launch. Users who purchase 'Game Pass Ultimate' can access cloud servers and play games on their own Android OS-based smartphones or tablets as long as they are connected to a network. Additionally, during the subscription period, games can also be played via download on PC and consoles.

Since last year, SK Telecom and MS have been focusing on building the network environment to launch cloud gaming. Cloud gaming requires ultra-fast, ultra-low latency communication and ample server capacity to respond in real time to numerous users' inputs, which are key competitive advantages. Accordingly, the technical teams of both companies started the world's first 5G-based cloud gaming field test in Korea last year. Karim Chowdhury, MS Vice President in charge of cloud gaming, said, “We appreciate the partnership with SK Telecom for the launch of Xbox Cloud Gaming in Korea, and especially SK Telecom played an important role in operating the 5G network-based pilot service.” Jeon Jin-soo, Head of SK Telecom’s 5GX Service Division, stated, “We will expand games supporting the Korean language and discover and support promising domestic games to further broaden the domestic Xbox cloud gaming ecosystem.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.