Xbox caps cloud gaming for Game Pass: Ultimate subscribers limited to 15 hours monthly

Xbox said it will impose strict monthly limits on cloud gaming time for Game Pass subscribers starting in November. Ultimate subscribers on the £16.99 monthly plan will be able to stream games for up to 15 hours per month before they must buy additional cloud playtime through the Xbox store.

Different Game Pass tiers will have different allowances: Premium users will receive 10 hours and Essential subscribers 5 hours per month. Xbox also said users will be able to buy cloud playtime hours without a Game Pass subscription; the company did not disclose prices for extra hours.

Xbox attributed the limits to rising cloud costs and said the change will allow it to “continue to invest” in the service’s reliability and performance. The company said only 4% of Game Pass users currently use cloud gaming.

A Wall Street Journal report put Game Pass at 30 million subscribers, which would imply about 1.2 million cloud users affected by the change. Some users reacted negatively on X, calling 15 hours “abysmal,” and Jez Corden of Windows Central linked the decision to higher compute costs and Microsoft’s AI priorities.

The announcement follows comments by Xbox chief Asha Sharma to the BBC about the need to “innovate on affordability and efficiency” amid a computing-price crisis she called “Rampocalypse.” As part of a broader reset, Xbox has announced layoffs and made some previously acquired studios independent.

Cloud gaming has not become mainstream: Google launched Stadia in November 2019 and discontinued it in January 2023 after it failed to attract enough users. Xbox did not provide estimates of how the new limits will affect subscriptions or revenue.