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Xbox Cloud Gaming gets monthly limits: Ultimate 15 hours, Premium 10 hours, Essential 5 hours from November.
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Only ~4% affected, but heavy users should purchase additional hours via the Xbox Store; Pricing and regional regulations are unknown.
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The restrictions are aimed at stopping PC hacking as cloud demand grows, threatening to lose out to competitors like GeForce Now.
A year ago, we saw Xbox Cloud Gaming roll out to all tiers of Xbox Game Pass. Ultimate level had access to it years ago, so this was a nice surprise. Now Microsoft has another surprise, albeit not a good one. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can only play for 15 hours on Cloud Gaming moonand this is the upper limit of the limit.
Xbox Game Pass is getting a new monthly limit, and it’s not pretty
Xbox Game Pass Essential subscribers are especially at a loss
according to Xbox News websiteMicrosoft has announced new changes to its cloud gaming service. If you’re an avid user, you only have a few months to use it before your account gets hit with these pesky time limits:
Starting in November, we’re changing how cloud games are included in XBOX Game Pass.
Game Pass plans include a fixed number of hours of cloud gaming each month:
- Game Pass Ultimate: 15 hours
- Game Pass Premium: 10 hours
- Game Pass Essential: 5 hours
Today, eligible Game Pass subscribers can stream without monthly hour limits.
Microsoft says the change should only affect “4% of Game Pass subscribers,” but that’s a pretty big impact for that 4%, even for the highest paying tier.
So what happens when the clock runs out? Microsoft says you can buy more time through the Xbox Store. The company wasn’t ready to reveal how much people will be charged per hour or whether higher-level people will get a discount, but it said “Available hours, purchase options and cloud gaming features” will vary by region.
Microsoft claims that the move is due to the fact that people are using Cloud Gaming services more frequently and for longer periods of time. So, Microsoft wants to introduce these restrictions to stop people from using their PC. That risks losing business to cloud gaming competitors, especially given how Nvidia GeForce Now has brought “PC-quality” gaming performance to Amazon Fire TV Sticks.
