Aristeem Play vs Tencent START

Aristeem Play streams supported PC games from cloud hardware to a browser, so users can play without downloading or installing games on their device. The listed platforms are Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, web and Windows; supported devices include PCs, laptops and tablets with a keyboard and mouse, as well as devices running Chrome OS, iOS or Android. Stream quality is listed as up to 4K on every plan. A game must be in the Aristeem Play library to launch, and some titles are unavailable or cannot be added. Games marked as requiring purchase must be bought from the relevant game store; the subscription covers hardware and streaming, not the game. Users also need their own account with the relevant store, such as Steam, Epic Games or Battle.net. The subscription costs €3.99 a month. There is no free plan or trial, and an active subscription is required even for free games. Play requires a recent Chromium browser, hardware H.264 decoding, a stable connection and a keyboard and mouse or gamepad.

Tencent START streams games rendered on cloud servers to supported devices, so players can start supported titles without downloading them. The app listing says progress can continue across devices when players log in with the same account. Its library includes online, single-player, and independent games, organized with personalized categories and recommendations. Listed devices include iPhone, iPad, mobile devices, tablets, computers, and TVs; the iPhone app requires iOS 14.0 or later. Tencent describes START ENGINE as supporting real-time biological and dense plant rendering, dynamic tree simulation, and GPU-accelerated fluid simulation. Tencent Cloud says streaming uses Tencent-RTC and Tencent Mingmou encoding technology, and documents JavaScript, Android, and iOS SDKs and APIs. Its Game Streaming product is a PaaS solution for PC and mobile games, with functions migrated to application cloud rendering. Each concurrent cloud gaming instance supports one player at a time. A free plan is listed, and named paid options include a STARTvip student monthly card at 28 CNY a month, an eight-hour package at 28 CNY, paid once, and a VIP monthly card at 29 CNY a month. Other listed plans have no prices shown.