Bojan Vrbnjak
The tuning scene's wet dream of 2000 to bring home gaming from the couch to the car is slowly becoming a reality. While at the time the PlayStation 2 was still somehow embedded in a complex interior conversion and attached to the mini screen of the Alpine radio, now more and more games are moving inside the manufacturer's cars.
While many people can only play simple structured casual games, such as through the provider Airconsole, Mercedes now uses Boosteroid, a cloud gaming platform that offers indie games as well as some Triple-A games. Starting next year, Mercedes plans to partner with gaming provider Boosteroid and include its app in the MBUX Entertainment Package Plus. "Together with Boosteroid, we offer you an even more engaging gaming experience in our Mercedes-Benz vehicles. The cloud-based approach is the ideal solution to enable triple-class gaming for our customers and video game enthusiasts," says Magnus Östberg, Director of Software at Mercedes-Benz.
The cloud gaming provider's catalog for passing the time during the break includes popular and critically acclaimed video games such as GTA V, Hogwarts Legacy, Red Dead Redemption 2, Elden Ring, popular games such as Fortnite, Roblox, Among Us and Rocket League, as well as indie games like Stardew Valley and Slay the Spire. Access to the games is possible through a subscription model, which can be used not only in the car. You can also access the Boosteroid app through your PC and laptop, smartphone or smart TV. It can also be connected to a controller.
The Boosteroid app is currently still in beta testing, and is expected to be available in Europe and North and South America in 2025. In the past, the still-new concept has often reached its technical limits, so platforms like Magenta Gaming and Google Stadia , withdrew their services from the market after a short time. In cloud gaming, since the games are not installed locally, but are transferred to the end device via a server, depending on the bandwidth, there have been several problems with interruptions or time delays in the gameplay. The reason for this is the large amount of data that needs to be transferred to the player.
Even established players in the market, such as Microsoft with its Xbox Cloud, are currently struggling with such problems. Whether Mercedes and Boosteroid can do it better could be checked at Gamescom in Cologne in the E-Class, and in the final version no later than 2025.
Great, input management. Mercedes is taking big steps into the future, as long as it's not like the plane "Dad, let me drive a little"