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

266

u/MrKoch2003 16h ago

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.

93

u/_Ocean_Machine_ 14h ago

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.

61

u/b0w3n 14h ago

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

6

u/EstablishmentCivil29 13h ago

No shit right?

-8

u/Zalvren 13h ago

To be fair, I don't think cloud gaming is used by anyone that is at that level of gaming. It's basically for people that almost don't game at all (and so don't see the need in having a local machine)

14

u/Njoybeing 13h ago

It is. It's used by people like me who are living on a very low, fixed income, who don't have any way to purchase high end hardware.

0

u/Strong-Finish5346 9h ago

don't have any way to purchase high end hardware.

If you were putting that $26/mo into a savings account, instead of setting it on fire by giving it to game pass, you'd be able to buy a new PC roughly every 4 years. It would require self-discipline and delaying your gratification though.

5

u/Used-Persimmon-367 13h ago

Cloud gaming is the only way I can play my owned copy of Cyberpunk.

3

u/No-Education3638 13h ago

Beg to differ

3

u/EstablishmentCivil29 13h ago

That is incorrect

5

u/Front_Dragonfruit324 11h ago

Ill literally quit gaming . It's just a money grab now. PlayStation, xbox all as bad as each other. I only use cloud gaming on my phone. As I can't justify buying the most recent consoles... life's to fkn expensive. Kids , bills, subscriptions, now having to pay to stream games you own , these companies need to cut the crap and stop fleecing us . Ill be back to Sega mega drive and snes at this rate 

3

u/DocileBanalBovlne 14h ago

That's not even enough time to choose which facial scar I like best

2

u/MrScottyBear 14h ago

Man. I thought Geforce doing a 100 hour limit was bad...

4

u/jbaker8935 14h ago

even a casual player working on a new game. couple checkpoints a night will blow that limit in a week. not great, but i suppose they got to do it.

8

u/SinkPhaze 14h ago

As a casual gamer whos primary hobby is NOT gaming and mostly plays relatively short puzzle games, short walking sims, and the odd session with friends. 15 a week might be a bit more than I need usually but 15 a month is fucking laughable. I'd hit that every month

If this limit would really only effect 4% of their customers (per the article) then their customers aren't using their service

3

u/Maniactver 12h ago

Its 4% of Game Pass subscribers, so yeah, probably 96% of game pass users just don't use cloud gaming at all.

2

u/Frequent_Opportunist 11h ago

I imagine most of their customers are paying for it and not using it. I paid for it for 2 years and didn't use any of the cloud gaming.

1

u/mucho-gusto 10h ago

It was ass for me so yeah I avoided it

2

u/drewcareymoore 13h ago

I understand there’s some people who will leave it on all day and there’s gotta be some kinda reasonable limit, but 15 hours on the top plan is low.

If they raise it to 50 on Ultimate and keep the other plan caps as is, they can probably win some people back, but man, 15 is so stingy.

1

u/Njoybeing 10h ago

You see 50 hours as a reasonable limit? How did you get that number? I see 50 as stingy enough to be a deal breaker and 15 isn't even worth discussing.

2

u/ACoderGirl 10h ago

Lol wow, is that seriously it??

I was gonna make some comment partially defending them (along the lines of "subscriptions are meant to reflect costs of buying a console now, not however many years ago"), but 15 hours a month is utterly pathetic.

Is there actually a serious target audience? Because that number is so low that it makes me think they're purposefully trying to get rid of the service. Like they wanted to turn it down but figured it'd be better to just set some hilariously high price instead. Like you'd do if your toxic former job wanted you to put in some contractor hours after you quit.

1

u/DisastrousAcshin 6h ago

I'm the early isp days you paid extra for more hours once you hit your limit. I'm sure companies would love to get back to that

1

u/dusters 10h ago

Who is spending 15 hours in character creation?

1

u/Major_Higgins 9h ago

30 minutes a day is preposterous!

1

u/TheRetardedGoat 49m ago

Conspiracy whereby they know the AI prices are fucking consumer PCs stopping people buying them and consoles and shifting to subscription services

-16

u/jon_targareyan 15h ago

I think the limit is per day. 15 hours per month would be an abysmal cap

6

u/Dearic75 15h ago edited 14h ago

Google search is insisting it will be 15 hours per month.

Also, that’s at the highest tier. The cheaper tiers are 10 hours per month and 5 hours per month.

9

u/nox66 14h ago

It's not, it's per month according to the official blog post.

5

u/jon_targareyan 14h ago

That’s unreal