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
11.2k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

36

u/nohumanape 17h ago

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?

30

u/noahcallaway-wa 17h ago

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".

5

u/nohumanape 17h ago

True. I didn't even think of that.

3

u/Siphyre 15h ago

Or even just falling asleep while playing. It gets left on the entire night running in circles and bam, no more time.

3

u/Dbrise 12h ago

And what about time spent in a lobby if you play fps games, sometimes it takes forever to find a game

0

u/scrandlle 13h ago

It always has. It's like four minutes of inaction until you get a popup asking if you're still there and like a minute after that it disconnects you.

4

u/Asriel_the_Dreamer 17h ago

I don't think most people even use the cloud gaming service, I guess it's nice that it exists but after this change I'd wager most people won't feel any difference.

I suppose they're curbing the monthly time for cloud gaming because it won't affect most people?

1

u/nohumanape 17h ago

It doesn't have to be something what "most people" use, for it to be nearly worthless for those who do actually use it.

This is a feature that is only going to be more and more necessary going forward. Unless they plan on re-launching it as a more substantial service, then this is a bad move.

2

u/Asriel_the_Dreamer 16h ago

Don't think they're planning on re-realeasing it, seems more that they weighted in and decided to cut back, it's more trying to understand why they did it.

I do think it's bad, it will end up with backlash and maybe if it's too much they might back pedal a lil bit like when they did with the gamepass.

Yeah, it probably will be awful for everyone that uses it, just wondering if the backlash will be big enough that they reconsider.

1

u/Stevo182 15h ago

The dumbest part of all of this is that you can purchase a full length game that you can play as many hours as you want to in the realm of $20-$40.