Microsoft to impose time limits on Xbox cloud gaming subscribers as costs continue to climb

[u/Force_Hammer]

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/03/microsoft-xbox-game-pass-cloud-limits.html

[u/TermLimp3134]

"you don't need hardware, you can just stream your games"

how's that working out?

[u/Googoo123450 → u/TermLimp3134]

"everything is an Xbox" lmao

[u/Castun → u/Googoo123450]

"Don't you guys have phones?!?"

[u/disavery → u/Castun]

now that blizz is owned by xbox this hits home and hits hard lol

[u/vertigostereo → u/disavery]

Spend $5 to finish your Overwatch 2 match!

Upgrade to play 2 more hours of WoW!

[u/nozappyplease → u/Googoo123450]

Ex-box

[u/Zalvren → u/Googoo123450]

For some time (5/10/15 hours per month)

Then, nothing is an Xbox

[u/spmbx → u/TermLimp3134]

“Fortunately we have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity: it's called Xbox 360.”

• Don Mattrick

[u/GlassLost → u/spmbx]

You have no idea what morale was like for us when he said that. Like... We were working insane hours to get Hydra going and he just shot us all in the back.

I was a very new engineer at the time, it was my first interaction with stupid management.

[u/diiegojones → u/GlassLost]

How was the after shock? Did you witness any internal fallout?

[u/GlassLost → u/diiegojones]

I had been an engineer for like a year. And I was insulated from politics. All I can tell you is that the vibe suddenly sucked - it went from hopeful to pointless.

[u/DaleDimmaDone → u/GlassLost]

How do you deal with that? I have a similiar feeling at my job rn but for multiple reasons a job search is not a possibility atm

[u/GlassLost → u/DaleDimmaDone]

I dunno. I was young - it didn't really phase me. I was working in the video game industry and I didn't appreciate the ramifications of what he'd said. I was more affected by everyone else.

Now that I'm older I have many more options - I left a team last year because I didn't think they were on a good path. My coping mechanism would be to leave.

When I finally burnt out at Xbox, 4 or 5 years after that console launched, I went out pretty hard (your first experience with burnout "sneaks" up on you in my experience).

[u/SirSoliloquy → u/DaleDimmaDone]

Not OP, but for similar low-morale situations at other jobs I started to take the following perspective:

My job is to do what they tell me in return for a paycheck. I’ll do my job as well as I can, and I’ll make suggestions if I think of anything, but I no longer personally care whether a venture succeeds or fails.

[u/HeartInTheSun9 → u/TermLimp3134]

Exactly. There’s so many hidden costs that they’re just not talking about.

It’s the same with ai. It’s free to use chat gpt right now, but no one will ever use it for anything when the real cost of each use is charged. They’re just hiding it hoping to get people hooked and fire their whole staff, but the real costs are higher than a human worker.

[u/Ree_For_Thee → u/HeartInTheSun9]

The sooner that bubble implodes the better.

I'm sure there are niche cases where it's profitable. I mean, how hard can it be to have it check emails and filter for "Where's my package?" and answer? Stuff like that.

[u/bgomes10]

"Why don't people like cloud gaming?"

Someone everytime a new cloud gaming service started.

[u/VV1NST0N → u/bgomes10]

Every cloud gaming service I have used won't work for me. The input latency is too high even on a fiber connection.

[u/rand0mtaskk → u/VV1NST0N]

This has been my experience too. It’s just a terrible experience on nearly all games.

[u/Maxcharged → u/rand0mtaskk]

The lagging does look really funny though, because it will fast forward through whatever happened while you were lagging to catch back up.

NHL started looking like a Benny Hill chase scene. And the commentators sounded like chipmunks.

[u/EdgeBandanna → u/rand0mtaskk]

This is what I've been saying about cloud gaming forever. Even if the latency is somehow cleaned up, it will only work for people on top end connections, ultimately limiting how mich of an impact it will have in the space.

[u/Fluffy_Charity_2732 → u/VV1NST0N]

Which is funny because streaming direct from my own pc via steam link is 50x less latency than cloud dogshit. And that’s when I’m on the road via WiFi. And tried all the premium cloud providers from my fiber at home 

Cloud gaming is bullshit on purpose. They want to see how shit they can keep the service in order to make it “better” when they need to look like they are improving it

Anyone using cloud gaming right now is dumber than shit

[u/082426grateful → u/Fluffy_Charity_2732]

I remember when publicly traded firms could just say the word “cloud” and their stock price would surge.

[u/REDDITATO_ → u/082426grateful]

See "AI" now. Round and round we go.

[u/JoushMark → u/bgomes10]

Google spent a billion dollars learning there's no way to profitably make a cloud gaming system. Either the performance is bad enough nobody wants to pay for it, or the performance is good but it's so expensive nobody wants to pay for it, or the performance is good and the price is good but every customer you sign up cost you more money then they pay you.

[u/NMe84 → u/JoushMark]

The only way game streaming is any good is if you do the streaming yourself. I stream from my PC to my TV using Sunshine and Moonlight and that works great, but I can't imagine for a second that I'd pay for that experience but with worse latency and the risk of games being taken from you at any moment.

[u/Muggsy423 → u/bgomes10]

At least google refunded everyone for the money they spent on Stadia.   I still have the controller for that. 

[u/Oldbayislove]

“Users with high-end Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions, which cost $22.99 per month, will have access to 15 hours of cloud gaming. Game Pass Premium account holders, who pay $14.99 per month, will have 10 hours of cloud-based playtime, while Game Pass Essential, which costs $9.99 a month, includes five hours, according to the blog post.”

lol

[u/PromiscuousScoliosis → u/Oldbayislove]

15 hrs per what?? That can’t be per month right???

[u/JTalbotIV → u/PromiscuousScoliosis]

Oh it's per month. They really don't want xbox to succeed.

[u/OPMajoradidas → u/JTalbotIV]

Shitttt. That's like one days worth

[u/Jops817 → u/OPMajoradidas]

Yeah that's like, a Saturday free. That would stress me out making sure I am maximizing my time, better not idle at all, might even join the piss bottle meta over it because can't waste any time (jk, maybe).

[u/welzed11 → u/Jops817]

Wild that they have the audacity to limit it this much when their cloud gaming is worse then PlayStations. PS5 cloud gaming has 4k resolution which Xbox doesn’t, HDR which Xbox doesn’t, better image quality and less latency 

[u/TheWizardGeorge → u/welzed11]

I mean honestly I pretty much never use it because of how much worse it is than both Playstation and GeForce now, despite having had(canceled earlier this year) game pass for so long.

[u/DEVIL_LOCK → u/OPMajoradidas]

Yeah the jrpg crowd isn't gonna like this one.

[u/MrWildspeaker → u/[deleted]]

That’s literally 30 minutes a day. Absolutely insane.

[u/QF_Dan → u/JTalbotIV]

Looks like Xbox and Sony are fighting to be the worst company again

[u/ChainsawVisionMan → u/QF_Dan]

The new console wars are the race to the bottom.

[u/DR_BEANHAMMER → u/JTalbotIV]

That's insane. My wife and I are grown adults with full time jobs and a household to manage and we game roughly 2 hrs per day on weekdays and can put in 10ish hours on the weekends.

I am so glad I built a pc before prices shoehorned people into cloud gaming.

[u/OblivionJunkie → u/DR_BEANHAMMER]

Built mine in 21/22', gf built hers in 23/24'. We're very thankful lol

[u/CMDR_omnicognate → u/JTalbotIV]

Honestly I think this should be more telling on how the collapse of ai is coming. If they can’t sustain more than 15 hours per month of cloud gaming for $23 a month, imagine how much it’s costing for all the ai companies to generate images of minions getting crucified, or people on Twitter asking grok if the moon is real…

This speaks to a much bigger, more desperate problem for… well all of these companies I think.

[u/ruiner8850 → u/JTalbotIV]

I bought a Firestick that came with a free month of Ultimate to stream and it was nice to have since I have never owned an Xbox and only have a PS4. I actually planned on getting another month or two during the winter when I'd have more time to play. This announcement has ended any thought of that.

[u/Christmas_Queef → u/JTalbotIV]

Wtf Nvidia geforce now cloud streaming service gives 100 hours a month and even that isn't enough for active gamers lol.

[u/WorthPlease → u/PromiscuousScoliosis]

First thing I thought, huh that's gotta be like 15 hours a day right? Couldn't be a week.....holy shit.

[u/yung_dogie → u/WorthPlease]

15 a day would be reasonable, that's definitely one of those situations where you're thinking "well, this is an edge case that I should've thought of but isn't really what I had in mind" like if someone stayed 8 hrs at a McDonalds constantly refilling one drink cup or something

But 15 for any other typical unit of billing time above per day is pretty damn silly

[u/DidYouPayForWinrar → u/yung_dogie]

I could see 15 a week being reasonable for some people. Even something like 4 hours per day would be reasonable for a lot of people especially if they let hours roll over.

15 a month though lol?

[u/Mr_Industrial → u/PromiscuousScoliosis]

$22 for 15 hrs? Might as well just go to an arcade at that point.

[u/_Ocean_Machine_ → u/Mr_Industrial]

Shit, an arcade would be better because then you can at least get out of the house and hang out with friends.

[u/PromiscuousScoliosis → u/Mr_Industrial]

Oh look, pre-9/11 arcade prices

[u/ll30yd → u/PromiscuousScoliosis]

It's OK, you can buy more

[u/LezDoTheBoogerWooger → u/ll30yd]

Wait until "the 15 hours per month are supported by ads. Do you want more? It's 2.99 per hour with ads, 3.99 without ads! PLAY MORE!"

[u/49e-rm → u/LezDoTheBoogerWooger]

PLEASE DRINK VERIFICATION CAN TO CONTINUE

[u/letsgotgoing → u/LezDoTheBoogerWooger]

I guess in the infancy of the all-digital future, I'll buy games from GOG.com to own my digital games without DRM, and, of course, physical versions of retro titles.

[u/PhotonBarbeque → u/ll30yd]

I could at the arcade too. Then I bought a computer for home. Now I’m… paying to use it by the hour to stream a game in from outside my home…???

[u/GokuBlack722 → u/PhotonBarbeque]

If you have a computer why are you streaming these games to it instead of running them natively

[u/frogguts198 → u/GokuBlack722]

He didnt say he had a good computer.

[u/DatedReference1 → u/ll30yd]

Article says they did not specify fees for more hours. I'm sure it's coming but they're waiting to see how unpopular this is before they give a price.

[u/Hartia → u/PromiscuousScoliosis]

wow....15 hrs is like something i'd use in a few days. if Sony does this too, the portal is practically useless as my main portable while ps5 is off. There goes any hopes ps4 game streaming would come to the device.

[u/JimmyDejesu → u/PromiscuousScoliosis]

I feel like Im having dejavu.

warned people against going all digital now its inevitable.

for the love of god dont encourage cloud/streaming games, its a stupid idea

[u/Endure94 → u/JimmyDejesu]

Selfhosted game streaming? Hell yeah.

Corpo game streaming? Hell nah.

[u/ZebraSandwich4Lyf → u/Oldbayislove]

15 hours per MONTH??? Lol, lmao even.

[u/Mrevilman → u/ZebraSandwich4Lyf]

WTF am I supposed to do with the other 30 days in the month?

[u/TransplantedSconie → u/Mrevilman]

Watch an AI generated video featuring someone playing a game that you want to play.

[u/XiMaoJingPing → u/ZebraSandwich4Lyf]

Saw so many posts about gamers claiming that corpos want to take away their pcs and force them on the cloud.

Like no they don't give a fuck about gamers, they want to use every resource they can for AI datacenters.

[u/TheDrewDude → u/XiMaoJingPing]

Greed is a cancer. They would literally suck up every last resource from humanity until we all went extinct.

[u/JeanLucPicardAND → u/TheDrewDude]

Bro, they are.

[u/Careidina → u/TheDrewDude]

That's the idea. Rules and regulations stopped them. Once those are gone, then there isn't much else to stop them. Humans always needed an outside source to save us from ourselves as we're our own worst enemy.

[u/mouse_8b → u/XiMaoJingPing]

Corpos do want to take away your PC and force you to the cloud.

[u/pepcorn → u/Oldbayislove]

Per MONTH. 

Hilariously awful offering. If they can't afford to offer cloud based services, then GO BACK TO SELLING PHYSICAL MEDIA INSTEAD.

[u/JimmyDejesu → u/pepcorn]

This seems obvious doesnt it lol. And yet

[u/pepcorn → u/JimmyDejesu]

They don't like solutions where they can't trap their customers into giving them money for barely-a-service forever.

[u/TheDrewDude → u/pepcorn]

And yet they would sooner destroy their own company then give ownership to their customers. Fucking joke.

[u/Remnant_Echo → u/pepcorn]

Also notice the note: "Players will be able to pay for additional hours beyond the caps"

[u/pepcorn → u/Remnant_Echo]

Basically trying to milk their most dedicated users for more money.

[u/Mauamu → u/pepcorn]

I don't think you need to be one of the "most dedicated users" to hit those caps in a month to be honest.

[u/Little_Obligation_90 → u/pepcorn]

They want their cloud servers used for AI and Azure. Not poor gamers.

[u/Ickyfist → u/Oldbayislove]

Just get rid of cloud gaming at that point. It's clearly not worth the cost.

At the very least they should remove cloud gaming from game pass. Most people don't use or want it. You could also lower game pass prices or improve the service.

[u/KnightKal → u/Oldbayislove]

they are beating having a gaming device will be too expensive, so people will be happy paying $1 to $2/hour to rent the device instead, no? Something in that order.

better keep your PC/device safe :D, they are coming for it

[u/Demonchaser27 → u/Oldbayislove]

Yeah... this shit is what I've been talking about to friends and some other subs when they say "everything is going to move to cloud". When even Game Pass (the model where you can just download the games so bandwidth cost is much lower) isn't affordable for one of the largest tech companies in the world, how in the fuck is cloud streaming going to be viable for them?

Nevermind that if density increased, wait times would be ridiculous, they'd start doing system sharing between users (one machine runs multiple games) which will absolutely fuck frame pacing and input latency. The whole thing is a complete and total mess... and they can't even afford to offer ONE hour of gaming per day. And even if they could offer just that one hour, that would not be anywhere near worth the money.

Companies couldn't do this shit when hardware was more affordable, but now? No... we're not likely to move to streaming just because hardware prices are outrageous... We're not the only ones who'd have to pay those outrageous prices, so do the companies trying to host cloud services. And then they have to somehow charge you more than what you used to pay for unlimited use hardware... when people couldn't even hardly afford that. None of the numbers add up.

[u/Mammoth_Park7184 → u/Demonchaser27]

It's what I've been on at work about over reliance on ai including copilot. Microsoft are going to suddenly rug pull and wack restrictive limits on token usage until you pay through the nose now theyve got you addicted. 

[u/x_scion_x → u/Oldbayislove]

Lol, if that's hours per month that's pitifully low for all tiers.

Not even an hour a day per month, barely 1 hr a day for half a month at ultimate tier.

[u/nohumanape → u/Oldbayislove]

That is a near worthless amount of time for anyone who plays games with any regularity. And wouldn't a Game Pass Ultimate subscriber be someone who likely games more frequently?

[u/noahcallaway-wa → u/nohumanape]

Or, if it doesn't have aggressive idle detection, that 5 hours/month gets eaten up pretty quick with just a few of "I put down the controller because of a crying baby and didn't come back for a bit".

[u/PhotonBarbeque → u/Oldbayislove]

Yeah, it’s over. What a shit service. Just shut it down!

[u/LezDoTheBoogerWooger → u/Oldbayislove]

Per month? So I pay 23$ per month and NOT have one hour of gaming per day? What happens if I have a normal adult life and I need to pause or disconnect frequently? Do loading times count? Give me back disks and games I ****ing own please.  It's PLAY time, not "let me check if I have enough time to exploit successfully the time I bought with my subscription" play time.  Gosh. 

[u/iusedtohavepowers → u/Oldbayislove]

This is like Spotify with audio books. They just casually drop the most garbage limitations on a service that highly restrict usage and then seem baffled by a lack of uptake.

I listened to the limit on Spotify ONCE and then realized how it worked and just went of I won’t ever use that at all and I damn sure won’t add fucking minutes to it.

[u/amillstone → u/Oldbayislove]

Holy shit, only 15 hours? When I read the headline, I thought they'd cap it at 100 hours like GeForce Now. But 15 hours per month at the highest tier? That's crazy. Especially since it wasn't that long ago that they claimed everything is an Xbox and tried to push players towards cloud gaming.

[u/Saturn_winter → u/Oldbayislove]

I dont do cloud gaming so I dont have a dog in this race, but if thats the model they need for it to be sustainable or profitable, then cloud gaming as a whole probably just isn't sustainable or profitable. Imagine if Netflix came out and said they have to limit watch time to 10 hours.

[u/ohlookahipster → u/Oldbayislove]

FIVE HOURS PER MONTH????

[u/PetalumaPegleg → u/Oldbayislove]

Per month??????? 5 hours a month????? Gtafoh. This can't be serious

[u/decoy777 → u/Oldbayislove]

Uh 15 hours a month???? Um yeah might as well just remove it at this point. I don't use it. But those that do probably use it way more than 15 hours. And those that don't use it don't care about it.

[u/Kabirdb]

"Players will be able to pay for additional hours beyond the caps"

So basically the standard fuck you, give me money.

[u/Strikereleven → u/Kabirdb]

They're going back to that 1999 AOL model

[u/Canadyans → u/Strikereleven]

Oh god you just gave me dialup flashbacks. Damn you. And you’re right.

[u/HastilyThrownObject → u/Canadyans]

“Get off the internet, I need to use the phone!”

[u/1337b337 → u/Strikereleven]

Just swing by WalMart and grab another free 100 Hours Of America Online disc they keep by the checkouts.

[u/MrKoch2003 → u/Kabirdb]

15 hours a month on the highest tier is 30 minutes a day. You'll hit the cap before you even finish character creation in an RPG.

[u/_Ocean_Machine_ → u/MrKoch2003]

If you only game on weekends, that's less than four hours per weekend.

I imagine most of us in here can knock that out before Friday night is over.

[u/b0w3n → u/_Ocean_Machine_]

My comment when someone mentioned 15 hours was literally "ah yes, a saturday"

[u/Nomoreargument → u/Kabirdb]

Why cant WE all say FUCK YOU, we are not gonna give you any money? I’m sure if 75% of us did that they’d get down on their knees and beg to have us back.

Why do we keep funding these greedy fucking bastards?

[u/bl4ckhunter → u/Nomoreargument]

No one's going to pay for this, this is just them downscaling the service so there's less people pissed off when they outright shut it down later down the track because they've rediscovered for the seventh or eighth time that cloud gaming is never going to be economically viable because servers are too expensive to run compared to user devices.

[u/Wolfgar26 → u/Kabirdb]

Nshitia paved the way for others to pull the same move.

GeForce Now went from unlimited playtime to 100h and people got pissed, Microslop proves once more they can always be more greedy than others by maxing out at 15h

[u/stache1313 → u/Wolfgar26]

100 hours a month is at least somewhat reasonable. That's an average of 3 hours and 20 minutes a day.

[u/invyros]

Users with high-end Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions, which cost $22.99 per month, will have access to 15 hours of cloud gaming. Game Pass Premium account holders, who pay $14.99 per month, will have 10 hours of cloud-based playtime, while Game Pass Essential, which costs $9.99 a month, includes five hours, according to the blog post.

From unlimited access to 15 hours a month, what a rip.

[u/RockinMadRiot → u/invyros]

Isn't it unlimited with Sony?

[u/SmiggleMcJiggle → u/RockinMadRiot]

For now

Sony likes to copy Xbox’s business models: paid online play, gamepass equivalent etc

[u/Vanlande → u/SmiggleMcJiggle]

Except the good stuff like the rewards program. They ditched PS stars a year ago and still nothing. Xbox has their rewards still

[u/theycmeroll → u/Vanlande]

For now, they gimp it further and further every chance they get

[u/Dave3087 → u/SmiggleMcJiggle]

First, Sony will use Microsoft’s misstep to market their unlimited plan… then a few months later they will do it themselves.

Much like Apple and Samsung.

[u/AbeShrewMice → u/invyros]

15 hours per month for the highest subscription is absolutely laughable. I love it when corporate execs show that they don’t know a damn thing about the shit they sell.

[u/Revolution-SixFour → u/AbeShrewMice]

They are just getting fucked by AI. Five years ago cloud gaming was just renting some GPUs in the cloud, then AI made GPUs in the cloud more expensive than gold.

[u/Feanixxxx → u/invyros]

This has to be per day, right? Don't tell me people pay 23 bucks for 15 hours of playing?

[u/8bitjer]

Xbox and PlayStation are speedrunning to see who the most anti-consumer it seems

[u/Gauntlet4933 → u/8bitjer]

The entire tech industry is in this speedrun. They realized that if they dump all their resources into datacenters for AI, they can just keep circlejerking themselves with AI slop while siphoning money from private credit that after some gymnastics comes from our own retirement portfolios. Smile!

[u/Veeb]

Ah the AI usage model. The future is so bleak.

[u/scumper008 → u/Veeb]

Getting only 15 hours a month to play games is a joke.

[u/Booldye → u/scumper008]

Hey, the way we're headed, you're expected to be in the saltmines, slaving away for the technofascist dictators most of your waking hours, so 15h/month will be more than enough.

[u/MadeByTango → u/Booldye]

And then with your time off you have to see ads at every screen and open space so they can keep making money off of you even when you're not working.

[u/kaptainkooleio → u/scumper008]

What, you don’t enjoy playing your favorite games for only 30 minutes a day?

[u/NecroNile → u/scumper008]

That's not even counting that the user has to pay $23 for the privilege of 15 hours a month.

[u/PeteCampbellisaG → u/scumper008]

They've managed to turn gaming into a 1-900 number.

[u/BioEradication → u/Veeb]

The future looks amazing...if you have piles of disposable cash and don't mind handing it over to big corporations every month.

[u/Gram64 → u/Veeb]

We're back to tokens like 80s arcades.

[u/Simmons54321 → u/Veeb]

Nah, we just say no and don't support those fucks. The future is as bleak as we all allow it

[u/-no_aura- → u/Veeb]

“You will own nothing and you will be happy”

[u/WeirdAssBeings → u/-no_aura-]

"don't you guys havephones money??"

[u/Icy-Cod1405]

Damn I guess I'll keep playing on the console I own like always.

[u/Obscuriosly → u/Icy-Cod1405]

"We're working to fix that" - Micro$oft probably

[u/RephRayne → u/Obscuriosly]

The next generation of consoles are gonna cost a grand.

[u/Icy-Cod1405 → u/RephRayne]

Unfortunately that increase tracks with the cost of building a gaming PC now.

[u/Chikitiki90 → u/Icy-Cod1405]

I was curious so I looked up the price of my 1tb Samsung ssd that I bought in 2019 for $163…that same stick costs $430 now! We live in the worst timeline.

[u/SaltyLonghorn → u/Chikitiki90]

Just wait, when AI fails and they need to find something for all those datacenters to do the 15 hour a month premium plan is gonna feel generous.

We're nearing the bottom of the slippery slope that began with horse armor.

[u/adarion29 → u/Obscuriosly]

Your subscription service got an "upgrade"

[u/MuchBow]

"I don't mind not owning games, cloud gaming is super cheap and does not require expensive hardware" - The same idiot who now has to pay $22.99 for just 15hrs of cloud gaming.

Don't want to sound insensitive, I can understand hardware is expensive especially right now but cloud/subscription gaming is not the a good solution. A temporary solution perhaps but saving and buying your own hardware should always be the primary focus, trusting a corpo with a subscription service will always result in a bad outcome.

[u/nik-nak333 → u/MuchBow]

$22.99 for just 15hrs

And that's just the introductory rate. Next year it will be $24.99 for 15 hours, the next year $25.99 for 13 hours, and so on.

[u/FoxyBastard → u/nik-nak333]

Plus ad breaks.

[u/OverLordJezus → u/MuchBow]

I said this in tv streaming/hbo sub, complaining about multiple ads playing on the screen. The reason they get away with it is because of spineless people who will pay without any forethought.

They then get defensive about it with comments like “it’s not that bad” and “just pay a few dollars extra and get no ads”. Yeah, we keep doing that and in 10 years you’ll be paying thousands a year for ad free streaming services or being interrupted every 10mins with 2 mins of ads.

[u/ErrantWayfarer → u/OverLordJezus]

Gaming is one of the few places where not sailing the high seas has mostly worked out for me as a value proposition. They keep this shit up and I will return to the old days.

[u/Uchihagod53]

Fucks over the few people that use the cloud gaming

[u/PromiscuousScoliosis → u/Uchihagod53]

Stadia all over again

[u/ExtensionParsley4205 → u/PromiscuousScoliosis]

At least Stadia didn't have monthly limits

[u/Florgio → u/ExtensionParsley4205]

… they also no longer exist. Probably because their bean counters realized this.

[u/lavapig_love → u/Florgio]

No game service will exist with these limits.

[u/Corona-walrus]

Gonna end up just like the old days when you had to insert coins to keep playing except it's gonna be kids blowing hundreds of dollars on moms credit card. Mark me words

[u/breakinbans → u/Corona-walrus]

arrr, ye words marked, matey.

[u/Adventurous-Hunter98 → u/Corona-walrus]

Arcade but much worse, i would still prefer arcades because economy was better when they were popular

[u/cheesegoat → u/Adventurous-Hunter98]

At least arcades were honest about it. 25 cents for a few minutes of gameplay, longer if you were good at the game.

[u/BioEradication]

The way of the future.

The way of the future.

The way of the future.

The way of the future.

[u/iiiGerardoiii → u/BioEradication]

"and you will be happy"

[u/therealphilbo2530 → u/BioEradication]

Also was once "the best deal in gaming"

[u/Elberik]

There it is. That's the all-digital future. Regressing to pay-by-the-minute internet.

[u/zilog88 → u/Elberik]

Dial-up is dead! Long live the dial-up!

[u/StragoMagus70 → u/Elberik]

When will AOL start shipping the CDs again? 10,000 free minutes!!

[u/South_Buy_3175]

Sounds horrible.

About what I expect for the future of gaming though, so not surprised.

[u/calmdownmyguy → u/South_Buy_3175]

Sounds horrible. About what I expect for the future of gaming though, so not surprised.

Sounds horrible. About what I expect for the future of gaming though, so not surprised.

[u/Calimar777]

I feel like people who are content with only gaming for 5-15 hours per month but also care enough to pay for a subscription to play is an extremely small demographic. Who is this appealing to? Might as well completely end the service.

[u/Bubbly_Army → u/Calimar777]

That’s the plan.

[u/Davegoestomayor → u/Calimar777]

Yeah this is idiot math, anyone who actively subscribes to game pass for cloud gaming is probably well beyond 15hrs, they’re all going to unsubscribe or stop using the service. Some moron did a P95 distribution curve of all accounts based on monthly hours streaming, not factoring in the fact that probably 90% of the accounts are between 0-1hr, I.e. they don’t use cloud gaming

[u/mrfixitx]

15 hours of cloud gaming on the $23 a month ultimate plan for anyone who does want to click. 10 and 5 for the other two plans.

[u/UnobviousDiver]

We can't dedicate GPUs to gaming, we need those for AI

[u/VanillaTortilla → u/UnobviousDiver]

To better monetize you of course.

[u/adarion29]

That's kind of why I don't buy that theory about big tech trying to sell us cloud gaming, hardware cost increase for everyone, including cloud gaming providers, it's still going to be cheaper to buy those overpriced memory and graphic card, than paying too much for a terrible subscription service

[u/twinflxwer]

We’re watching the death of the gaming industry in real time

[u/ilorah]

Are these companies trying to push everyone to Steam/GoG lol

[u/QF_Dan → u/ilorah]

all fun until Gabe steps down

[u/FrostyAd7708 → u/QF_Dan]

That's my biggest fear, what happens when Gabe steps down and the company goes public ?

[u/mynameizmyname]

MIcrosoft and Sony in a battle to see who can piss off their user base the most.

[u/adognamedspider]

Enshittification continues.

[u/Multiguns]

Congratulations Microsoft, you just killed your service. 15 hours, per MONTH?! That's hilarious.

[u/ZoomZoom_Driver]

So one side says "you dont own digital games and you can't have a disc."

While the other side says "if you have our digital subscription you can't play free games for more than 15 hours out of the 730 hours every month."

Or 2% of a month. TWO PERCENT.

I loathe this dystopian bullshit hellscape.

[u/QF_Dan → u/ZoomZoom_Driver]

Everything is so bleak man.....this industry is so dead

[u/PIN360]

Remember when video games used to be a fun hobby to get away from the real life for a few hours? And you never heard from a CEO, let alone knew what one was? Now video games are corporatized with CEO's raking in millions of dollars, having shareholder meetings, talking about quarterly profits, while never picking up and playing a video game in their fucking life. In fact, the people that actually married their love of games with their profession are the ones who get fired, killing the medium while keeping profits for these blood suckers sitting in board rooms as high as possible... with no regard for the art of video games itself because all they care about is money!

[u/BoSocks91]

I dont even use cloud gaming, but this is such a crock of shit.

And again, we’ll complain and nothing will change.

Im so tired of this fucking shit, it always seems like stuff is being taken away, its always something negative.  We get fucking bread crumbs.  

[u/SimpleAnecdote]

"You don't need to own your games", "you don't need to own your hardware", "it's simpler and cheaper to use our cloud compute/games/digital licenses/whatever".

Some time later... "Oh, it's actually super expensive and makes no sense but we've already changed the industry and waited for a time when hardware prices are sky high also because of nonsense shannanigans. So price is up and will continue yo rise. You're welcome!"

Capitalism today feels like the resurgence of the robber barons. We need some governments oversight pronto, break up monopolies/duopolies/cartels, ensure fair and open market, and police big corps' predatory practices.

[u/sarge1445 → u/SimpleAnecdote]

Yeah well thanks to the last election we get giga robber barons instead

[u/Mixels]

RIP GamePass Cloud. 15 hours per month is a joke.

[u/Alleandros]

Game companies really just want people to sign over their houses and get nothing in return.

'Please let us bill you $200 a month for life and in exchange, our shareholders and executives will get to enjoy not thinking of you'

[u/palex00]

15 hours is comically laughable. They were really worried Game Pass was eating into their budget so they said "let's kill it and XBOX together!"

[u/markbraggs]

First they take away physical games media.

Then they push digital only.

Then they push subscription only.

Then they limit your play time for a paid subscription.

Then they introduce ads into your limited play time, while increasing the monthly cost.

Screw everyone who is OK with the death of physical media.

[u/Iron_Bob]

First they took away physical games, and now they are forcing you to pay for games youve already bought?

Why does anyone use this? What is wrong with you people?

[u/OutofCiteOutofMine]

You want to kill a service? This is how you kill a service

[u/john0tg → u/OutofCiteOutofMine]

I wonder if that’s the ulterior motive.

Intentionally making a service bad which leads to lower usage, which then gives Microslop a solid reason to cut corners or even dissolve Xbox entirely which means they can funnel every resources into their AI obsession.

Either that, or they’re incredibly out of touch on everything.

Or both.

Tinfoil hats on, of course. Wouldn’t put it pass em to do it tho.

[u/Ale_ImNotAlive]

Never ever considered cloud gaming, as an option.

[u/Mr_McZongo → u/Ale_ImNotAlive]

No reason to start now lmao

[u/Psharp10]

This is why I bought a gaming computer and now only buy games on steam ... Steam is the best gaming platform of all time .

[u/adkenna → u/Psharp10]

I fear for Steam post Gabe, it will join everything else and abuse it's popularity.

[u/unKappa → u/adkenna]

Apparently he’s training his own kid. We’ll see I guess.

[u/Spugheddy → u/unKappa]

Can he not have clauses baked in to ownership transfers etc? I feel as well as he has managed everything so far I do hope he has plans already in place.

[u/Magnon → u/adkenna]

Afaik gabes son is positioned to be new ceo if gabe steps down as it is. 

[u/Robobvious]

You will own nothing and your life will be rented to you. That’s the world they want to make.

[u/dragonnation5523]

So the value of game pass just went way down I guess. Crazy that the highest tier only gets 15 hours a month. That is diabolical

[u/NoobensMcarthur → u/dragonnation5523]

Surely they’ll lower the price to compensate for losing unlimited cloud gaming, right?

/s

[u/_Ross-]

Please drink verification can.

[u/mouthsmasher]

Sorry for the dumb question, but can someone clarify what is meant by “cloud gaming”? Is this referring to playing online through Xbox Live? Like just hopping on to play Halo or Forza online? Or is this referring to that service where the game itself is running in the cloud on their servers and is in a sense streaming to you?

[u/FBI_Open_Up_Now]

Sorry, you’re times up. Please insert quarters to continue.

[u/Bannon9k]

This is data center costs rising and affects only streaming games from their cloud servers... Which sees less use than Stadia did

[u/varietyviaduct]

It’s so funny how they want to get rid of physical, push for an all digital future, and then ultimately an all streaming future, so that this will be the model they can implement.

Everyone saying they dump 100s of hours into games… you really think they’re not reading that too and trying to figure out how they can monetize each minute?

[u/greatcirclehypernova]

Damn, Microsoft made it real easy for me. Been subscribed to ultimate since it launched. Just turned it down to premium. I do like keeping some options but I am not supporting this. It isnt that I game streamed a lot but it was a very nice option to have for some of those moments.

Ive been with Xbox since 2011 and I just cant just abandon the entire library I have there so I dont want to ditch premium. Sorry guys, but I cant support ultimate with this shit.

I dont care about operating costs. They gave us something and they took it away. Totally fine but Microsoft forgets that gamepass ultimate operates on convenience. Not loyalty. I only have it because it was convenient. As soon as premium stops being convenient then ill cancel all together