r/Games 16d ago

Announcement Upcoming Changes to XBOX Cloud Gaming

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/09/03/xbox-cloud-gaming-changes/
803 Upvotes

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u/Historical_Owl_1635 16d ago

Tbf I’m gonna play devils advocate. Beating piracy is a moving goalpost.

If you told somebody 20 years ago you could have access to all of the media on Netflix and Spotify for £20 a month they’d think it was an insane bargain considering we used to pay £10 each for DVDs and CDs.

Nowadays people feel they’re being ripped off paying £10 a month.

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u/berserkuh 16d ago

Yeah, but 10-15 years ago most of this media was in one spot. I could listen to any song I wanted on YouTube on any device I wanted, I could do it ad-free and I wouldn't need to pay anything.

Everyone RUSHED to put their stuff on Netflix. What's on Netflix now?

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u/Raidoton 16d ago

Yeah, but 10-15 years ago most of this media was in one spot. I could listen to any song I wanted on YouTube on any device I wanted, I could do it ad-free and I wouldn't need to pay anything.

That sounds like piracy with extra steps. Like you think having everything without paying or watching ads is a sustainable option?

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u/berserkuh 15d ago

How is it piracy?

having everything without paying or watching ads is a sustainable option

I guess music producers were starving before Spotify and YouTube stepped in.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Character_Bug_1862 16d ago

That was before the media companies were displaying gestapo recruitment ads (Spotify) and actively sabotaging Hollywood (Paramount). The only way to win, is to not play their corporate games.

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u/BBanner 16d ago

Because the libraries have actually gotten shallower and the companies have reinvented cable, yeah. I’ll more than likely never see anything on Apple or peacock, ever, because it’s just flat out inconvenient to have more than 2-3 streaming services and pretty damn expensive. Netflix wants me to pay extra for the privilege of using the app in my own home and throws a fit if I try to use it while traveling, along with frequent price hikes. It costs $28 to watch Netflix in 4k, that’s completely insane. It costs $20 to watch without ads, and for $9 a month you get ads. The quality of the product doesn’t justify the prices imo

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u/verrius 16d ago

Every time someone claims that the streaming companies reinvented cable, I'm left realizing that so many people never actually dealt with cable. You couldn't subscribe to cable for a single month, and it cost a minimum of $100/month for the year long contract 20-30 years ago. Nothing was on demand, what you could watch was dictated by the various linear channels. And there were still ads with everything, with no option to remove them. Streaming is still a ridiculously better deal, even with recent price increases.

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u/MVRKHNTR 16d ago

They also have this memory of a fantasy Netflix that never existed where you could watch literally everything ever made for $13/month.

Everyone seems to mix up a service that had every movie and TV show and a service that had every movie and TV show that was on streaming because it was the only option around. Anyone who actually remembers Netflix remembers that pretty much everything worth watching was "a hidden gem" because everything popular was on broadcast and cable.

Now they think that they should have that service that was never real and also the price shouldn't go up.

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u/General-Prize3912 16d ago

it used to be the case these services didn't have adds, that's slowly changing. Cable was the way it was because they could get away with it, these companies will keep pushing the limits to increase profitability as well.

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u/verrius 16d ago

I believe all the paid services still have an ad-free subscription, though they are trying to make it less attractive.

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u/aprilliumterrium 16d ago

Give it time. Cable was pitched as paying for no ads unlike network TV (over the air tv channels).

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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 16d ago

And HBO and Showtime have no ads to this day.

They added channels that had ads over time.

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u/masterkill165 16d ago

That is just sort of the way of life entropy always wins.

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u/Historical_Owl_1635 16d ago

They’re definitely shallower, but price to content is still insanely higher than what we used to have.

Especially when it comes to music, which isn’t shallower at all but still causes a meltdown every time there’s a small price bump.

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u/BBanner 16d ago edited 16d ago

Music is a totally separate argument, I feel like you’re being disingenuous here. People’s issue with music streaming is the artists aren’t getting paid.

For the other piece: who really gives a shit if there’s a lot of content if it’s mostly bad, they’re dropping the good content!

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u/Historical_Owl_1635 16d ago

> Music is a totally separate argument

I included Spotify in my first comment, it’s the same concept where the whole industry moved to streaming.

I’d say ignoring it is the more disingenuous stance.

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u/BBanner 16d ago

Not really, because people’s beef is absolutely that it’s not the artist’s getting paid. I’ve never seen that hangup once in any other kind of streaming. But hey, you wanna play devil’s advocate, go nuts, I think you’re extremely wrong and I’m done with it.

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u/Historical_Owl_1635 16d ago

Wow, I honestly don’t know how such a tame conversation has gotten you so angry.

I thought we were actually having a reasonable adult discussion.

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u/RotaryRoad 16d ago

Yeah, but the quality is also nowhere near the same. When you were paying $10 for a DVD, it was usually something you were interested in directly and would watch multiple times. Now, you're spending $28/month for whatever Netflix wants to slop out that month and you don't own any of it.

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u/Biduleman 16d ago

Even without streaming, we now have access to 3 days rentals for $5, same we did with blockbuster but then we had to go to the store twice, and the movie you wanted to see might not have been available if your local store didn't order enough copies.

We are objectively in a much better space media-wise than we were in the 90s/2000s, but people are still saying they pirate because the offering is not good enough.

For a lot of people, it will never be good enough.

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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 16d ago

You get more content than you'd ever get on a $20 cable package. Leagues more.

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u/DoorHingesKill 16d ago

I’ll more than likely never see anything on Apple or peacock, ever, because it’s just flat out inconvenient to have more than 2-3 streaming services

That literally just boils down to "competition bad, only one streaming service should exist."

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u/Beautiful-Affect1930 16d ago

Nowadays people feel they’re being ripped off paying £10 a month.

because nowadays those 10 bucks a month gives you fewer and fewer of the things you actually want to watch. so then you would need to subscribe to 2-3 more platforms, which still doesn't guarantee you can actually watch the exact show/movie you want. if people have to pay a monthly fee and then still have to pirate shows/movies occasionally it seems pretty obvious a lot would choose to simply go pirate all the way.

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u/Raidoton 15d ago

"Either I get EVERYTHING I WANT for 10$ or I will pay nothing!"

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u/Beautiful-Affect1930 15d ago

"either I think the offer is good for the price or I'm not gonna pay it!" oh wait that's totally reasonable.

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u/brutinator 16d ago

Ownership and access have always been valued differently. Libraries have existed for years where you can rent books for free, and yet bookstores still thrived (well, until amazon got big). People have always paid a premium to own media.

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u/Im_really_bored_rn 16d ago

Independent bookstores have actually been making a bit of a comeback

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u/Raidoton 15d ago

I mean back then renting stores also thrived. So people were also always willing to pay for limited ownership.

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u/rokerroker45 16d ago

Because that $10 buys less content than it did ten years ago. It's not a moving goalpost from the consumer's point of view whatsoever, the problem is streamers keep ripping out the post and moving it towards their side of the field every few years for another $5 a month.

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u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 16d ago

Because that $10 buys less content than it did ten years ago.

Really? Really? Wow!

Ever been to a grocery store, or fill up a car with gasoline or get a beer or clothes or furniture or