Samsung's Gaming Hub will land on 2020 smart TVs later this year

Oct 12, 2023

Older TV owners can enjoy Starfield without shelling out on extra hardware

Samsung's Gaming Hub provides a convenient platform for people to stream games without any extra hardware. Launched in 2022 exclusively for 2022 Samsung smart TVs, Samsung partnered with all the major game streaming services at the time, including Xbox Cloud Gaming, GeForce NOW, and Google Stadia. While Stadia is long dead, the number of supported devices for Gaming Hub continues to grow.

At Gamescom 2023, Samsung announced that the Gaming Hub app will launch on 2020 Samsung TVs later this year. This continues the positive trend of Samsung bringing Gaming Hub to more devices; 2021 TVs received support just five months after the service launched.

For those unfamiliar with the service, Gaming Hub lets you stream games directly to your TV without needing a console or streaming stick. Alongside game streaming services, apps like Spotify and YouTube are included so you can quickly hop between gaming, music, and videos. The service uses AI upscaling to support Samsung's 4K and 8K TV models for games without native 4K or 8K support.

Owners of 2020 Samsung TVs won't miss out on any features either. Samsung claims that 90% of Bluetooth controllers are compatible (so most of our favorite controllers) with Gaming Hub, and virtual controllers are also compatible.

Of course, it wouldn't be a 2023 gaming announcement without mention of Bethesda's upcoming sci-fi RPG, Starfield. Starfield will launch on Xbox Game Pass on September 6th, and thanks to the streaming app's inclusion on Samsung TVs, owners of any 2021 or later model will be able to play on launch day. Unfortunately, the 2020 models won't receive Gaming Hub support before the game's launch.

The expansion of Gaming Hub to older generations of Samsung TVs is excellent news. While we hope that Samsung will support Gaming Hub for older models, older hardware makes optimizing streaming much harder. Still, support for 2020 TVs is more than we would expect.

Jon has been a freelance writer at Android Police since 2021. He primarily writes how-to guides and round-ups, but occasionally covers news. His favorite Android device was the Pixel 2 XL, and he regards the three-month period where he owned an iPhone as a time of the utmost shame. Jon graduated with a History degree in 2018, but quickly realized his writing skills were better put to use writing about tech rather than essays. He started writing and editing for startups shortly after graduating, where he did everything from writing website copy to managing and editing for a group of writers. In his free time, you can find him fiddling with computers and spending his entire paycheck on vinyl records.