Upcoming Changes to XBOX Cloud Gaming
news.xbox.com
Beginning in November, we’re changing how cloud gaming is included with XBOX Game Pass.

Game Pass Ultimate: 15 hours

Game Pass Premium: 10 hours

Game Pass Essential: 5 hours

And if you’ll allow me to editorialize, there’s a popular enough conspiracy theory that these platforms want to funnel you into cloud gaming for constant subscription revenue. I think the Why We’re Making These Changes section is exactly why these services will never be able to deliver that service at a price people are willing to pay. It’s expensive to provide this service, and they’re making sure they don’t lose any money on it by charging at least what it costs to provide.

  • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
    0·
    3 hours ago

    I’ve learned that’s just kind of Microsoft’s thing. Whenever they have a product that might actually be a “disruptor” they figure out a way to shoot themselves in the foot.

    • iPod landed but lacked video. Microsoft makes the Zune and it was awesome, but clunky software and a boxy shape made it fall, and they killed it before a needed v2.
    • Xbox & Xbox 360 had Microsoft riding high, and then they ignored gamers and threw away their target market with the Xbox One
    • Hololens promised true AR gaming, and they threw that out before they even made a consumer version.
    • Mixed Reality followed Hololens, was genuinely a cheaper VR alternative, had one myself. Then they silently killed it before reducing the hardware to ewaste a couple of years later.
    • Windows 7 was their best OS after XP, so of course they change everything about it to make Windows 8
    • Skype was the only video calling service that people regularly used, and they bloated it and enshittified it, causing it to collapse just a few years before Covid, allowing Zoom to take over.
    • Cortana had genuinely more functionality than Alexa, but they stopped investing in it, forced it down everyone’s throats, then sunset it, leaving ewaste speakers.

    (and so many more)

    They either come up with a good idea and half ass the execution, leaving the consumer disappointed, or they kill it off before it ever has a chance to take off. Google I guess at least let’s a product get to it’s highest peak making sure they disappoint the maximum amount of users, but Microsoft just makes sure that the users never even arrive.