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Xbox Cloud Gaming has basically been put out to pasture, with Microsoft intent on together with hourly limits on the service.
From November 2026, Microsoft will impose a 15-hour cap on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate customers enjoying cloud video games, in addition to a 10-hour cap on Premium, and 5 hours on Essential. It’s an enormous climbdown from the earlier “unlimited” entry Xbox Cloud Gaming granted, and an indictment of the enterprise mannequin usually.
Microsoft says that the modifications will affect “4%” of Xbox Game Pass subscribers, which in essence still amounts to well over a million players. Microsoft has rolled out Xbox Cloud Gaming to LG, Samsung, and now TCL TVs as of today, which makes for some awkward timing.
The limits have been met with derision both within and without the Xbox fanbase, and have shone a spotlight on where Xbox is falling short here.
NVIDIA GeForce Now will extend its value over Xbox Cloud Gaming
Not only that, but NVIDIA GeForce Now also just offers a generally higher-quality experience, with better bitrates, latency, and stability. Xbox Game Pass had it beat before on usability, though, with a more console-like interface and more TV-friendly apps. Game Pass also comes with a larger upfront library of games, whereas NVIDIA GeForce Now, for the most part, is made up of games you’ve already purchased from Steam.
The issue for me is … 15 hours just isn’t enough to complete the vast majority of decent games these days. Fable is supposedly around 30 hours long for a completionist playthrough. Will Xbox Cloud Gaming users be expected to spread their session across two months to finish the game?
Microsoft is going to offer per-hour passes to boost how much access you have, but we’ve not really seen the pricing yet. I have a feeling they won’t be cheap.
Xbox Remote Play could be a solution … but it seems to be abandoned
We live in a weird dichotomy right now, driven by the AI component crisis. Microsoft is buying up all the memory for its AI push and leaving Xbox with scraps on the side. That extends to Xbox Cloud Gaming servers too, and while they can be used for AI workloads off-peak, I’m told, they’re obviously not specialized for that type of work.
Either way, servers break down and wear out; they need to be replaced regularly. Running servers 24/7 is an expensive business on the component side, even before you start thinking about electricity and water for cooling.
A chap on X (Twitter) sent me a link to an Xbox Player Voice feedback item that laments the quality of Xbox Remote Play.
You can successfully flip a house Xbox Series X|S console right into a “personal cloud server” and have it stream your video games over a viable Wi-Fi community. The downside is, regardless of being comparable {hardware}, Xbox Remote Play is inexplicably locked to 1080p. Xbox Cloud Gaming on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gives 1440p with increased bitrates, too.
There’s no actual purpose why, no less than within the case of the Xbox Series X, we should not be capable to get a greater Xbox Remote Play expertise. But that does not precisely resolve issues for customers who rely solely on Xbox Cloud Gaming …
Cloud-first avid gamers who purchased an Xbox Ally base mannequin or different cloud-first gadgets just like the Logitech G Cloud are just about screwed by this modification — except Microsoft does one thing to enhance Xbox Remote Play. That is, in fact, presuming they even personal an Xbox Series X|S, each of which at the moment are insanely costly. None of this actually makes loads of sense, does it?
Update: Since penning this piece, it appears Microsoft started testing 1440p on Xbox Remote Play too on the Xbox Insider program’s Alpha Ring, which is a large win. But there’s nonetheless not loads of details about whether or not they’re going to answer the backlash about cloud utilization limits. I’ll try to get extra information later about precisely what we will count on from Xbox Remote Play.
Xbox Cloud Gaming is one other sufferer of the RAMpocalypse
I used to be just lately informed by Microsoft figures that, given compute calls for for AI, Xbox Cloud Gaming is successfully shedding cash when used past 15 hours per thirty days. When you’ve Azure server rack house getting used for something apart from AI, it appears Microsoft is not notably sentimental in the direction of the concept anymore.
Microsoft has been on an financial grind for Xbox over the previous few months, “restructuring” the org to make sure that it sends an even bigger accountability margin again to the mothership. That’s meant mass Xbox layoffs and cancellations of projects, and a more aggressive posture towards easy wins.
Xbox Cloud Gaming clearly isn’t an easy win in this new reality. If 15 hours is the cap that prevents the service from being unprofitable … perhaps the business model was never really viable in the first place.
Xbox Cloud Gaming isn’t exactly struggling in a vacuum, though. Other companies that rely entirely on cloud inference seem to be struggling. Whether it’s Roblox or Twitch, the era of “cheap cloud” seems to be over — alongside video game consoles themselves, and consumer hardware in general, seemingly.
Either way, I don’t see how you can plausibly expect people to use cloud gaming as a primary vehicle with such a strict limit. Microsoft isn’t able to get Xbox hardware stock to most of the world either.
Then … you start wondering why Microsoft is so eager to let a literal billion Windows 11 users burn cash on a pyre for free access to Microsoft Copilot … but wants to charge out the nose for Xbox Cloud Gaming? It’s a pretty clear admission that they don’t see much of a future for cloud gaming in general. Or perhaps it’s just more AI psychosis.
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