Here’s how Samsung replaced the PlayStation 5 and Xbox

Samsung Gaming Hub provides the launchpad for games on TV – without a console.

It is now possible to play high-quality games without a console. Samsung comes with a Gaming Hub latest televisions Possibly we tried. You can simply connect a console to your TV and start streaming your favorite games. And there are quite a few of them. Xbox Game Pass is well known. But Nvidia’s GeForce Now is also compatible and easy to use.

→ Also interesting: Cloud gaming works well with cheap laptops

This is the Samsung Gaming Hub

Samsung Gaming Hub is basically a second smart TV operating system. In addition to the classic view with streaming apps, there is a second view for games. You can switch easily via the side menu. Depending on the configuration, you can select whether streaming video/TV viewing (“media”) or the Gaming Hub is your homepage.

Gaming Hub gives you direct access to your favorite game streaming services. As we mentioned at the beginning, the Gaming Hub is compatible with Xbox Game Pass, GeForce Now, Utomik, and Amazon Luna. PlayStation PS Now (as of May 2023) streaming service not included.

Important: Samsung itself does not have a cloud gaming service. With a gaming hub on TVs, you only provide the user interface for easy entry into the cloud gaming scene.

Plug in the console and turn it off

You can simply connect a controller via the Gaming Hub and then use it to control your TV – outside of the Gaming Hub, by the way. We tried this out with Sony’s DualSense controller. PS5 controller connected via Bluetooth. Simply press and hold the PlayStation logo button and the Share button at the same time for a few seconds. This puts the console into open pairing mode and your TV will find it. Then you follow the instructions on the TV and you can control it with the controller from now on.

It’s a pity: Samsung doesn’t offer its own content to watch, even if you just tried it. So you have to use one of the cloud gaming services. After all, they offer some free games. In the case of Xbox Game Pass, even Fortnite is available as a free cloud game. Then, it takes a bit of getting used to the fact that the instructions in Game Pass adapt to the layout of the Xbox console. So with the PS5 console, that means a little bit of switching. However, this is not a shortcoming of the Samsung Gaming Hub.

A quick overview of supported controllers in Game Center:

• Xbox Wireless Controller
• Xbox Elite Series 2 Wireless Controller
• Sony DualShock 4
• Sony DualSense

Platform Independent Research: This is where the potential comes in

But what sets a gaming center apart from providing an amphitheater for cloud gaming? You can browse the available games by genre using the buttons in the Collections section. The results are then displayed independently of the platform and you can first search for the game and then select the platform on which you can or want to play it. This prevents future subscription mess and is simply easy to use.

Cloud gaming: the perspective is great

Even if the Xbox app is still currently indicating its beta status in terms of cloud gaming, it still looks mature, and could very well be used via a Gaming Hub that – assuming Game Pass Ultimate – offers many games for live play. This shows that the road is smooth and that cloud gaming has a real perspective and is not a gimmick in the strict sense of the word.

We tested the setup with a Samsung OLED 55 S95BAT and over WLAN in a DSL100 environment including secondary consumers in the same network. Cloud gaming stands and goes with the internet connection. However, the performance is really good for this. Even frantic games like “Need for Speed ​​Heat” run smoothly on the screen. A directly connected controller still has some advantages – for example when items are reloaded faster. But the front is much smaller than we thought, and we can’t tell a big difference, especially with regard to the sensitivity of the controller.

And so it seems more than plausible that cloud gaming on TV could almost replace console in the coming years. Some real limitations remain. You need a stable, high-performance Internet connection and good technical equipment on the TV to process the content. Here Samsung has managed to do really well with its Gaming Hub, which now has to be constantly developed.

Samsung Gaming Hub Features:

• Clean design
• cross platform concept
• Fast and intuitive operating experience

Gaming Hub Cons:

• There is no special demo content
• Only selected controllers are directly supported
• Performance is not (yet) console-level (PlayStation 5 reference)

So it remains to say: the reference to games on TV in mid-2023 is still the “NextGen” console. So the PS5 or Xbox Series X. But the lead is not so great. Cloud gaming is no longer a PC thing.

→ Samsung Smart TVs with Gaming Hub at MediaMarkt (Until May 14, 2023 with cashback option)