Xbox Cloud Gaming will soon be available for free – with ads

Until now, anyone who wanted to use Xbox Cloud Gaming and stream Xbox games from the cloud had to subscribe to at least the Xbox Game Pass Essential plan for $9.99 per month. That’s changing now, as Microsoft announced on Xbox Wire that games purchased as digital versions can be streamed in the future at no additional cost. However, there are two significant drawbacks.

First, Microsoft limits playtime to one hour per session. And second, Microsoft displays ads. Microsoft emphasizes, however, that ads are played only before the start of each session. Gameplay will never be interrupted, and ads are not displayed directly within the game. This also explains the playtime limit – after one hour has elapsed, a new session must be started, and an ad will be displayed before it begins. According to The Verge, this ad takes about two minutes to play.

Microsoft also plans to explicitly market this service to Xbox One owners, who will be able to use cloud gaming to play titles developed for the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S ($486 on Amazon) without having to buy a new console. However, the playtime limit is unlikely to make this service very appealing for multiplayer titles or even for single-player games without regular autosaves. Currently, ad-supported cloud gaming is only available as a beta test for Xbox Insiders.