I use cloud streaming quite a bit. This sucks. Iām very unhappy about this.
Limits seem way over the top, not surprised if they add more to GPU after using this as a test balloon
Ultimate should not have a limit or it should be 40 hours or something.
Well, I guess cloud gaming isnāt the future after all.
They really want it to be (or wanted), but not at these prices lmao. Everything is too expensive for Microsoft these days. The industry in general. The economy in general. Iām waiting for them to start charging us to breathe.
I wasnāt under the impression it would be, but with Microsoft funding OpenAI to drive up prices of hardware components. Cloud gaming dying quicker isnāt really a surprise.
Imo, the people that this really hurts most are the ones that were using it to play F2P games. As they will no longer be able to just jump into a game for long periods of time.
This is ridiculously low! It needs to be much higher! I like that in the future you can buy hours and not be a gamepass subscriber.
I expected limits to follow suit with Nvidia, and it makes sense with the costs, but these are just brutal. A maximum of 15 hours for the Ultimate tier is just an insult. If feels like a joke. Heck, Fable just got said to have 20 years and thatās pretty normal for a AAA game, so I guess Cloud Gaming isnāt really an alternative for anyone. Even essential is cruel with that 5 hours. Thatās the monthly cap of a free tier. I donāt even want to think about what theyāre going to charge for nickel & dimeing additional hours.
With the moves Xbox has made this year (namely all the downsizing), it really feels like theyāre saying that everything they invested was a failure. The Xbox Wire post says they expect the changes to impact less than 4% of Xbox Game Pass subscribers; god thatās worse optics than the change itself. Thatās just pitiful. Less than 4% of GPU subscribers actually use the service? The average Netflix user spends nearly 15 hours a week streaming content. And yeah theyāre different mediums, but cloud gaming clearly isnāt taking off and engaging existing users or gathering new users like Xbox wanted. This also makes it look profoundly stupid for anyone who doesnāt own an Xbox console to pay for any tier of GP & buy and stream games.
Itās insane because Xbox Cloud Gaming JUST got rid of the beta tag last year. Has it even been a full year? Xbox is really actively falling flat on their face yards away from the finish line. Well really these investments needed a lot more time, engineering, and especially marketing to really take off. Theyāre dropping out of the race without even having completed a lap. It really sucks because the real driving force behind all of this is the AI bubble. Both the increased costs and Microsoft needing more free money are due to that stupid bubble. Iām so tired with it all. Iām tired of my enjoyment and daily life being so heavily affected by greedy bastards with no foresight. People who are really just pathetic cowards terrified of losing a penny and in desperate need to grow their obscene wealth.
As is, itās just a very easy decision for me not to renew my GPU subscription come next March. Iām not sure if Iād even downgrade to a lower tier or just drop it all together. Xbox might be best treated as a storefront I buy games through and a platform I play them on and not an ecosystem I constantly engage with. Because Iām getting real tired engaging with Microsoft these days as they blatantly offer me less and expect me to pay more.
Iām wondering how long itāll take to recovery when the bubble bursts. While AI related areas have just gone up and up at very unsustainable rates, other tech industries keep having to downsize as the AI craze skyrockets costs. Theyāre flying closer and closer to sun and keep taking away cushion to land on.
I wouldnāt be surprised if the āadd-onā stays at these hours, but they implement $10 and $20 Streaming Only subs that give 100 hours at various resolution/bitrate, like Nvidia.
It feels like it defeats the purpose of a subscription service.
It comes out of nowhere and it seems like they are cutting just the right amount of stuff so they donāt get into trouble. Imagine Netflix doing that ?
I hope they at least have a way to warn you when youāre close to the time limit, because it isnāt practical.
It was always an add-on, when compared to their ācompetitionā it was far cheaper and never going to stay that price.
Nvidia charges 10-20 hours just to stream games you have to buy otherwise. If Xbox moves cloud streaming to a similar setup where you get a little with GP or you can spend more to have 100 hours a month I wouldnāt be shocked.
Does Sony have a limit on how many hours they offer per month? If not, this just make them look like they offer better value overall.
I understand Xbox cutting costs, but this feels like nickel and dimingā¦
And yet people still say consoles are dead cloud is how most people game
Iāve never seen anyone say cloud is how most people game. Most people game on mobile followed by PC then console. Cloud Gaming has always been the nascent market that just started, but has high growth projections. The concern about consoles is that they just arenāt growing in users whereas PC, mobile, and cloud are.
Talk about slowly boiling the frog. First, it was COD was too expensive to be in Gamepass and will reduce the price, but they never put the price back at 20 now we get 15 hours for ultimate, and the price will probably be the same maybe even increase. Iām just happy Phil and Sarah announced Fable Gears, Halo and the rest for Gamepass as I think this new management would not have allowed them in. Gamepass just seems to be losing value, thereās been hardly any real solid day one titles coming to the service which is making it seem more similar to Sonyās service heck Sony just added free movies.
So, what does this mean for Xbox mobile plan?
Pleaseā¦
I had debates on here with people talking up the Cloud as the reason for Xbox profits and growth, when defending Bond. Now we learn directly from Xbox that this move will affect less than 4% of Xbox users
Iāve said all along its was Azure driving the growth & profits, not Xbox cloud gaming & Xbox needs to get back to consoels and PC not āThis Is An XBOXā
THIS IS AN XBOX is Xbox everywhere not just cloud. Cloud is just a part. There is also PC. Iām also not sure there is much for the console if they canāt make it affordable. A series X is now 800 dollars. Also, āThis is an Xboxā is very much still what Xbox is following they have just changed the format.