Xbox Game Pass subscribers aren’t happy. As said subscribers will know, it’s not been a flagship year for the subscription service. As we have documented in the past, the games haven’t been very good. They’ve been so lackluster that subscribers have been threatening to cancel their subscriptions all year. Meanwhile, it’s been reported that the frequency of day-one games — the pillar of the subscription service — is set to decrease. And now, Microsoft has downgraded all tiers of the subscription service, including the most expensive tier, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, where its most loyal users are most concentrated.
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For those out of the loop, Microsoft has announced some big changes to Xbox Cloud Gaming. Currently, Xbox Game Pass subscribers enjoy unlimited cloud gaming with their subscriptions. This is changing. More specifically, Microsoft has announced that unlimited is turning into 15 hours a month with Ultimate, 10 hours a month with Premium, and 5 hours a month with Essential. What you are supposed to do with 5 hours a month, in particular, is anyone’s best guess. That’s not even time to beat the vast majority of games available via the subscription service.
“Guess I’ll Cancel”
According to Microsoft, this is simply a cost-cutting measure. That said, Microsoft also notes this will only impact 4% of subscribers because only 4% of subscribers make use of cloud gaming. That said, while it may only impact a very small minority of subscribers, even those who don’t use it aren’t happy for the simple reason that they will be paying the same for less going forward. Meanwhile, for those who do use cloud gaming, well, this downgrade is essentially a deal-breaker.
“That just kills the service,” writes one subscriber. Another adds, “What the hell? 15 hours is barely enough to finish a single game.”
A third subscriber adds: “I primarily game from my Steam Deck; this is a massive blow for me.” And then a fourth subscriber further drives home the sentiment: “I just resubscribed specifically for cloud gaming. So dumb. Guess I’ll cancel after November.”
In particular, it is worth noting that many of the unhappy subscribers are specifically PC Game Pass subscribers with a Steam Deck. And this makes sense. That said, if rumors of an Xbox portable are true, then this currently minor problem is going to become a larger problem for many more subscribers in the future.
All of that said, it’s hard to imagine much future for cloud gaming at the moment. For those that do not know, cloud gaming relies on a tremendous amount of GPU, and right now AI and data centers are sending GPU and memory prices through the roof. And this looks poised to get worse next year. After this, there’s hope GPU and memory prices will flatten, but flattening won’t be sufficient, because they will flatten after skyrocketing. What will need to happen is for them to go down, and that’s not happening anytime soon.
