r/gaming • u/Force_Hammer • 17h ago

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

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/03/microsoft-xbox-game-pass-cloud-limits.html
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44

u/OutofCiteOutofMine 17h ago

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

14

u/john0tg 17h ago

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.

2

u/OutofCiteOutofMine 17h ago

Don’t give them credit. They don’t know what they’re doing lol

2

u/ultraboomkin 16h ago

Why would Microsoft develop, market and produce a new Xbox which is coming next year, if they wanted to shut down Xbox?

1

u/znubionek 13h ago

It's just a PC with Xbox logo. There will not be Xbox Helix native games.

2

u/psychoacer 17h ago

As long as they don't have to keep losing money keeping it going I'm sure they're fine with that

1

u/Myrdraall 16h ago

Feels deliberate. There is no way they don't know the exact backlash this will have,

1

u/ManiacalShen PC 16h ago

It says only 4% of subscribers exceed these limits right now. I would wager it's not the main point of the service for most people. Just folks who have tastes that far exceed their hardware and the people in here who use it to get around the fact that some games aren't released for PC.

If those high-graphics or console-only games aren't the entirety of their usage, maybe 15 hours is plenty, maybe it isn't. Sucks to have to do the math now, though

1

u/OutofCiteOutofMine 15h ago

It’s just the optics. If you’re trying to sell me on your service and I see the time limit, only play is not factored into the value any more. If it was unlimited I might give it a try. If it’s capped at 15 hours I’m not going to bother because I can barely do anything with that time.

1

u/ErrantWayfarer 16h ago

They're going to kill it and then keep Game Pass the same price because "people were paying for Game Pass and not using cloud anyway, so they're clearly okay with it"