Xbox is introducing strict monthly time limits for Game Pass subscribers who stream games online through its cloud gaming service.
The changes, which come into effect in November, will see a subscriber to the £16.99 Ultimate monthly plan able to stream games for up to 15 hours a month – before having to purchase additional cloud play time.
Xbox said the limits were due to the rising cost of cloud gaming, and they would allow the firm to “continue to invest” in the service’s “reliability and performance”.
While some questioned, external whether the service was used by many to begin with, others called out, external the additional limits for subscribers.
Cloud gaming allows players to stream and play games online from a remote server using a phone, tablet or controller, rather than downloading and running it on a PC or console at home.
Different tiers of subscription to Game Pass will have different limits.
Premium users will get 10 hours, while those on the basic Essential tier will get five hours a month before they have to pay for extra time.
Xbox claimed just 4% of the people who use Games Pass – its Netflix-style subscription plan for games – use its cloud gaming service.
A recent Wall Street Journal article, external reported Game Pass has 30 million subscribers, which would leave the number of people affected by the cloud gaming changes at roughly 1.2 million.
“This is a pretty awful change, hopefully Xbox adds an extra zero on the end cause 15hrs is abysmal. 30 minutes a day, really?” posted one commenter on X, external.
Jez Corden of Windows Central told the BBC the announcement showed that “absolutely nothing is safe from the AI-driven component crisis,” but he added it also highlighted “where Microsoft’s priorities are”.
Both cloud gaming and AI use the same infrastructure – data centres – to process information.
“For them to continue to offer unlimited access to Microsoft Copilot [AI] for free but restrict paid cloud gaming in this way shows some contradiction,” he added.
Xbox said in a blog post, external that from November, users would also be able to use the company’s cloud gaming feature without subscribing to Game Pass, but by buying “cloud playtime hours” through the Xbox store.
It has not revealed how much extra hours of cloud gaming would cost.
