Xbox is ending years of unlimited cloud gaming for Game Pass subscribers, instilling monthly playtime caps from November 2026. The amount of hours available to users varies depending on their tier, with additional time available at a further premium.
Under the new structure, Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will have access to 15 hours of cloud gaming as part of their membership. Meanwhile those on the Premium tier will have 10, while anyone on Essential will have just five hours.
All three amounts feel very low, but Microsoft claims this will only affect 4% of its subscriber base. For context, Nvidia’s competing GeForce Now service provides 100 hours of playtime across both premium tiers albeit without any complementary games.
Those wanting to continue using cloud gaming after reaching the limit will have an option to purchase additional playtime through the Xbox Store. At the time of writing, Xbox has not yet disclosed how much these extra hours will cost, stating that more details will come before the change goes live.
Xbox cites the growing cost of providing cloud services as the reason behind this change. While the firm doesn’t go into greater detail as to what these expenses are, the ongoing RAM crisis is undoubtedly eating into infrastructure costs and profit margins.
In parallel to this change, Xbox will allow users to purchase cloud gaming playtime without a subscription to Game Pass. This should prove useful to those that fleetingly need to stream their games, or are still using older Xbox consoles, but these one-off purchases won’t include any games.
I’m curious as to how this change will affect the ad-supported tier of Xbox Cloud Gaming. This option is free, but requires you to watch a few minutes of pre-roll advertisements before the game launches. Perhaps Microsoft could let paid members seamlessly switch to the ad-supported tier after reaching the aforementioned caps, without needing to modify their subscription.
Regardless, this will be a highly unpopular change, especially considering that Game Pass already demands £6.99/$9.99, £10.99/$14.99, and 16.99/$22.99 per month, respectively, for the Essential, Premium, and Ultimate tiers.
