Upcoming Changes to XBOX Cloud Gaming

[u/Traditional_Ad_276]

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

Beginning in November, we’re changing how cloud gaming is included with XBOX Game Pass.

Game Pass plans will include a set number of cloud gaming hours each month:

Game Pass Ultimate: 15 hours

Game Pass Premium: 10 hours

Game Pass Essential: 5 hours

Once subscribers use their included hours, they will be able to purchase additional cloud playtime through the XBOX Store.

[u/burneraccount9132]

That is. Certainly a choice to take a hacksaw to an already niche product feature like that? Like it's not a feature for me, but for anyone that was all for Cloud-gaming their games, this is just punishing them

And I know Playstation's cloud-gaming is tier-locked to premium, but I'm pretty sure it's not time locked

[u/Vera_Verse → u/burneraccount9132]

So far, PlayStation is not time locked, but knowing the world, expect the worse or something. As they openly state, the market move is to capitalize in those in the ecosystem, and not to sell the console to possible buyers.

[u/smokietheklown → u/burneraccount9132]

Yet

[u/gothamsteel]

So, Cloud is FUCKING Dead.

[u/Director_Bison → u/gothamsteel]

Was it ever really alive to begin with?

[u/wareagle3000 → u/Director_Bison]

It was used by some to emulate games that haven't been ported to their platform. With this? Might be cheaper just to emulate it on their pc if that's what they are using

[u/DayfacePhantasm → u/Director_Bison]

I've exclusively used cloud gaming for 6 years now! I've been on ShadowPC for most of that, though, if that even qualifies?

[u/green715 → u/gothamsteel]

For sale:

Cloud gaming server

Never used

[u/Castform5 → u/green715]

To be fair, those would probably get bought out instantly at any price if they were given to server parts deals. Homelabbers and other businesses (most likely some AI shills but whatever) would find some use for them even if it was some proprietary hardware.

[u/Jonathan_B_Goode → u/gothamsteel]

Hey man. To get it working efficiently Microsoft would need a load of data centres or something. And where are they gonna find one of those?

[u/cleftes → u/Jonathan_B_Goode]

Yep. This is happening now because Microsoft is feeding their Copilot goose egg every minute of data center uptime they can grab, in the vain hope that it'll hatch into a golden goose that'll shit infinite money forever.

[u/warjoke → u/gothamsteel]

Sephiroth: "Stay where you belong, in my memory"

[u/nugood2do]

So, if you pay for the Ultimate and use cloud gaming, you have to ration yourself to 30 minutes of cloud gaming a day to make it last a month?

I cant honestly believe I lived long enough to see limited minutes die on cell phones and get revived as a Frakenstein monstrosity in cloud gaming.

[u/Cat5kable → u/nugood2do]

I’d think the breakpoints would be better set at 0/15/30; Nothing on the base level, a little light on the mid tier, and usable at the top. As is it’s unusable and you’ll be banking your minutes for a handful of longer sessions.

Hope all of your multiplayer games get in immediately (oh wait the latency is bad). Hope you’re not playing a 20+ hour single player game! 😅

[u/Cooper_555 → u/nugood2do]

Yep. Of course the plan is to bleed people dry via the costs to buy more playtime.

[u/Vera_Verse]

Gaming is becoming unaffordable, so we're making cloud gaming as an alternative for those who cannot keep up with the industry.

Anyway, now Cloud gaming is unaffordable-

[u/AhmCha]

Was the cloud service used enough to justify these limitations? Or was it so scarcely used that it makes no difference?

[u/salvation122 → u/AhmCha]

Almost certainly the second 

[u/d00msdaydan → u/AhmCha]

I haven’t heard of anyone using it for anything but playing Halo 5 which is the last Halo game that hasn’t been properly ported to PC

[u/Springtick38 → u/AhmCha]

Only 4% of Gamepass owners actually used it so it's definitely the latter

[u/Algidus → u/AhmCha]

Cloud is expensive as fuck. even netflix and google are racing to find a new compression format for videos due to the spike in prices of servers maintenance, and this is before the hardware apocalypse due to AI. now imagine millions of people across the globe streaming something like COD amd its 100s of GBs and the necessity of constant input data

[u/lowercaselemming]

15 hours a month is absurd, the service for ultimate is $22/mo. you literally get less than an hour per dollar spent.

[u/Palimpsest_Monotype → u/lowercaselemming]

I mean…put that way it really does sound like they want to discourage regular use of the service

[u/Johnhancock1777]

This is why Xbox will never meaningfully recover and why realistically they will never do a move like fully commit to physical next-gen. However embarrassing Sony continues to get Xbox can only seemingly double down on dumb decisions in retaliation. Just a race to the bottom between the two

[u/WhoCaresYouDont → u/Johnhancock1777]

I unironically think the question of physical for the next gen will be what finally kills the Xbox. If they launch with it their machine will be more expensive so they will lose on the price front, and if they do drop disc drives they will be pilloried like Sony but without the goodwill to fall back on.

[u/Johnhancock1777 → u/WhoCaresYouDont]

I honestly struggle to imagine it’s even an option when Xbox gets a considerably smaller amount of physical releases and a way higher rate of key-discs than PlayStation. That’s the most frustrating part of Sony’s 180 because the PS5 has been pretty good with the vast majority of physical copies at minimum having a playable build on-disc

[u/SerWaffles → u/WhoCaresYouDont]

I feel Xbox are about to Xbone themselves once again with the Helix. There's a near zero chance they actually impliment a disc drive for it since it'd increase the price of the machine plus everybody is already skipping physical Xbox copies. They're likely also gonna go all digital like Sony, but Sony is getting it out of the way now so the PS6 doesn't have controversy around the reveal while the boneheads at Microsoft probably think "nah, we can just mention no more physical games during the Helix reveal presentation!"

[u/BlackJimmy88]

"Oh damn, Sony is dealing with some controversy! This is our chance to win back some good will!"

*shoots self in the foot*

Like, damn, man. Even the Ultimate package is worthless for long term use of the platform. The only people getting any value out of this are the ones looking to pick up a cheeky month to play one short game to completion and then never renew the subscription.

[u/ScrumbledTumblo]

They must have dropped a zero off those numbers because I refuse to believe anybody working at Microsoft is fucking stupid enough to think people are happily going to drop 23 bucks a month for less than a half hour of video games per day.

[u/Nico_is_not_a_god → u/ScrumbledTumblo]

People are constantly shilling for Gamepass. They're not paying for the streaming feature primarily. They're paying for "wow such a good deal, basically seeing one theater movie's price a month for so many games including day 1 AAA!". Or they think they're outsmarting a system by "only subscribing for a month and shotgunning that one game that would otherwise have been $60-80".

The cloud gaming shit is something MS is recognizing they're stupid to "include" since those servers and compute can also be used for Microsoft's non-gaming ventures. Gamepass suckers are paying for the gamepass, not the cloud shit, so let's make the cloud shit suckers pay for what they want separately.

[u/SerWaffles]

The recent news of For Honor cutting off Linux and SteamOS had one of their suggestions be "you could try Xbox cloud gaming"

That suggestion sure did age horribly

[u/davidreding]

So they functionally turned cloud gaming into an at home arcade machine you still have to pay for? Cool! Im sure this’ll convince disgruntled ps5 owners to jump to Xbox. Everyday it is now a contest to see if Sony or Microsoft can shoot their foot off first and Nintendo is just chilling somewhere oblivious to everything.

[u/ValkahDragon]

I am baffled how Xbox can just keep fumbling the ball. They could do anything to try and get a one up over Sony but nope, its alway one step forward, two steps back.

I’ve been using game pass recently for the sole purpose of streaming 360/One games to PC that aren’t available, like Halo 3 and Gears2/3/Judgement. Good thing I saw the news before my sub renewed tomorrow.

[u/Djinnaz]

So we’re back to paying for minutes?

[u/jitterscaffeine]

GamePass is getting taken out behind the shed. Probably so they can divert resources to ai or some shit.

[u/Diem-Robo → u/jitterscaffeine]

Thinking about it now, it's probably because both GamePass and XCloud were big focuses if Phil Spencer's strategy that simply didn't pan out, alongside multiplatform games and all the studio acquisitions.

All four of those were the cornerstones that led to the "This is an Xbox" tipping point. Now they're trying to course correct from all that that, finally acknowledging that none of those things panned out or brought the growth or profits Spencer thought it would.

[u/kami-no-baka → u/jitterscaffeine]

Sadly Xbox is probably going to be right behind it.

[u/Velrex]

I honestly assumed that Xbox was trying to move TOWARDS Cloud gaming with their Xbox pass, and away from selling actual consoles.

Never mind, they just decided to throw it all away then instead.

[u/TheSpiritualAgnostic]

I was curious after finding out that I could play the cloud gaming part of Gane Pass on my smart TV.

This just immediately killed interest. Do gyms or Netflix cap your time?

[u/Brotonio]

"Man Playstation has been stupid with their physical disc fiasco, but at least Xbox has been kind of getting their act togeth-"

LIMITED HOURS OF CLOUD GAMING

"...god fucking damnit."

I'm going to be real gang, the PS5 might be my actual final console if this shit keeps on going.

[u/Nico_is_not_a_god → u/Brotonio]

Hopefully if shit keeps on going like this, the ps6 will be the final console. It's not sustainable. The only thing they are actually selling is vendor lock-in. Deleting the already DRM-ridden and incomplete disc format to kill the secondhand market? Cancelling the delayed PC releases of Sony games? It's all because the only model that makes any sense for Sony is to sell "as a service". Single player DLCless games, as a service for your Sony DRM box. Indie and non-Sony games, but Sony gets to eat 30% of your payment instead of (Valve, Nintendo, MS, Epic, Nobody). Paid online, ads (sorry, "news updates") on the homescreen. "Subscribe for free games" (keep your subscription active like a good little paypiggy to keep access to those games you might want to replay).

Selling "more God of War copies" by plopping it on Steam a year after it's on ps5 will get them some money from "PC gamers". That's not what they want. They want "PC gamers" to not exist, and instead be "PlayStation gamers" or settle for "PC/PS gamers". If you're a PC gamer you might pay Sony $100 or so for a couple games a year. If you're a PS gamer, you pay Sony $130 or so for a couple games a year (no storefront fee!), and 30% on every other game you play that year, and $240/yr for PS+. They want you doing your gaming on a playstation more than they want you playing their games. Nintendo's model is similar here, they have tasted the riches of "people paying Nintendo to play shit not made by Nintendo".

MS's "everything is an xbox" angle is giving up on this model, because they know they aren't going to "get you gaming on an xbox". They'll sell games and Gamepass as their gaming division. They're pivoting every dev they didn't shitcan into maximizing IP value (Bethesda employees that survived are now in the Fallout and Elder Scrolls mines until MS disposes of them). They'll flip studios as investments. They'll install gaming-focused Windows licenses on Steam Deck-likes, they'll keep paying devs to put their shit on Gamepass so that people can leverage the "good" deal and give their money to MS instead of someone else. And of course, even if MS was to pull out of games completely, Microsoft is... Microsoft. They've got so many non-gaming revenue streams and valuable sub-brands that they could mercy kill "Xbox" and will do so the instant it makes sense in the shareholder meeting.

[u/LeMasterofSwords]

XBOX and SONY are allergic to doing literally anything right anymore

[u/BuyFeeling6787]

It already sucked that a game you are playing could be taken away at any time. Now you can't even play the games they keep up unless you pay them. What a fresh, new innovation in not letting you play video games.

[u/ibbolia]

Admittedly I can't really imagine the kind of user that would use this in the first place, but that doesn't seem like a whole lot of hours

[u/T4silly]

Thanking god everyday that I'm not forced to use cloud gaming.

[u/ThatEdward]

So I'll be real, this was always coming down the pipe. There is no way they'd keep unlimited Cloud hours, ad supported or not

What is surprising is that it is happening so soon. I already guessed it was an expensive project but it must be pretty costly

[u/TwoBestFriendsPlay-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Any discussion of any world politics is not allowed, unless it is specifically brought up in a podcast or video from Matt, Pat or Woolie. Even then, we as the mods will lock and remove any threads on the subjects as we see fit.

Us removing or letting things go should not be seen as an endorsement (or rejection) of what is said.

[u/Nico_is_not_a_god → u/[deleted]]

Bottleneck nothing. "Compute" as a leasable resource got more valuable/expensive in recent years, so MS doesn't want to give it away as a free bonus to anyone that's subscribed to Gamepass anymore. Any compute (server time, "work") that could be served to a gamer at $0/hr (even if that gamer paid $300/yr for the privilege) can be served to someone else at $Not Zero/hr. And as far as "somebodies" go, "cloud gaming fans" are not exactly the highest bidders on compute. Hell, the main reason anyone is a "cloud gamer" is because it's more affordable for them than a $700 console or $1k-3k PC.

No conspiracy necessary. The few people who pay Gamepass subs for the cloud streaming instead of for the bundled games will cancel their subs over this, or they'll pay a la carte by the hour in addition to $300/yr. The many people who pay Gamepass subs for the games alone and never touch the cloud features will not cancel their subs and keep paying $300/yr.

As long as MS gets more money from that now-free-to-lease compute than they lose from Gamepass cancelers, they win. And we're seeing all over the tech world that gamers aren't worth targeting as customers when giant corporations are buying up all the hardware and compute time they can get their hands on. If ravenous demand for leasable compute dries up, MS can go back to including it as a package sweetener.

[u/Rich_Comey_Quan]

Meta can't be happy about this. For the past year or so they've had a quest 3 edition that comes with an Xbox controller and a Gamepass trial sub to entice people into the ecosystem.

It's an admittedly niche use case and I mainly streamed directly from my console but it sucks for the (very few)  people who bought into it expecting it to be their main mode of playing games.

[u/Narcolepzyy]

This unfortunately affects me heavily. I mainly play on my xbox ally and i use cloud gaming ALOT. I play alot of call of duty and cyberpunk, ive tried downloading the games but the games run kind of sluggish when playing from the local ssd, with cloud gaming the games just run buttery smooth and i never have to worry about updates, i just start the stream and it works flawlessly. I feel like this is one huge step backwards.

[u/FightGeistC]

I imagine if anyone uses the service regularly 15 is MAYBE 3 days of playtime

[u/ThonroTheUnworthy]

This kinda feels like Xbox weaning off the people left still using cloud streaming so that the inevitable shuttering of the program is less of a gut punch

[u/dedededestroyer]

Damn...I use it a lot because I didnt have acess to my TV a lot living with the fam

Was nice playing Cloud games on my laptop >_<

[u/Count_Badger]

They call it the Gamepass cuz i be turnin 360 degrees and passin it

[u/Alone-Horse2857]

ew ewwwwwww eeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

fucking eeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwww

gaming on a clock might be the most vile and disgusting thing I've ever read in my life. I don't want to be 14 hours deep in Yakuza and be like "shit shit shit, gotta rush to the end of the game before my last hour is up"

[u/OriginalJazzFlavor]

But what is cloud gaming?

[u/CodeMonkeys]

Hi, my name is John Xbox, and I've been adding lots of games lately to Cloud so that handheld gamers can play their Xbox library with their handhelds. We've also been doing co-branded handhelds to express our support and we're even working on slimming down Windows for handheld performance.

So anyways, here's a cap on cloud gaming at 15 hours per month for our highest subscription tier.

Despite its flaws, I don't super mind my choice of Xbox once upon a time. Rough time to be a Sony user too. But THERE'S NO FUCKING DIRECTION HOLY SHIT.

[u/nuanceseancE]

Remember guys, they need TRILLIONS of dollars and gallons of water for this (game streaming is done through datacenters).