Samsung is bringing PC game streaming to the Note 10

Published August 8, 2019

One of the more interesting news tidbits from yesterday’s Unpacked event got a bit drowned out in all of the noise. Understandably so — Samsung jammed a lot into an event that ran just over an hour, virtually sprinting through a handful of gaming announcements.

The below video is the best demonstration we have of PlayGalaxy Link, a new feature that makes it possible to stream games directly from a PC to the Galaxy Note 10. Why the company didn’t make a bigger deal of the feature is beyond me, but when Apple and Google are really starting to get involved in gaming in earnest, Samsung really ought to have shone a bigger light on the new offering.

From the sound of it, the feature will be similar to one that Microsoft has been working on for the Xbox, letting users stream games from their PC onto the mobile device, whether or not they’re on a shared Wi-Fi.

The video showcases the connection, as a user links a Samsung Odyssey gaming laptop to a Note nestled inside a gamepad controller. Things are initiated by signing in on the desktop, opening the PlayGalaxy Link app on the Note and clicking “Start.” In the video, at least, game play happens simultaneously on both machines.

This is Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10 and 10+

PlayGalaxy is Samsung’s latest shot at getting more heavily involved in mobile gaming, arriving on the heels of the Apple Arcade and Google Stadia announcements. And while the new Note offers a number of hardware features optimized for gaming, it does appear that, as with Microsoft and Google’s offering, the PC is doing the heavy lifting here.

The offering seems to be linked to Samsung’s recently announced partnership with Microsoft — itself a clear shot across the bow against Apple’s ecosystem offering. There are still a lot of questions here, including how bad that lag is going to be. More coming soon, no doubt.