Xbox Cloud Gaming: Microsoft's Uninspired Ad-Supported Future?

Currently, Microsoft’s long-running Cloud Gaming service is limited to players that have a Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription. Now, new reporting suggests Microsoft is planning to offer non-subscribers access to game streams paid for by advertising in the near future, but only in extremely limited circumstances. The latest wave of rumors was set off late last week when The Verge’s Tom Warren shared an Xbox Cloud Gaming loading screen with a message mentioning “1 hour of ad supported playtime per session.” That leaked message comes after Windows Central reported last summer that Microsoft has been “exploring video ads for free games for quite some time,” à la the two-minute sponsorships that appear before free-tier game streams on Nvidia’s GeForce Now service. Don’t get your hopes up for easy, free, ad-supported access to the entire Xbox Cloud Gaming library, though. Windows Central now reports that Microsoft will be using ads merely to slightly expand access to its “Stream your own game” program. That program currently offers subscribers to the Xbox Game Pass Essentials tier (or higher) the privilege of streaming versions of some of the Xbox games they’ve already purchased digitally. Windows Central’s unnamed sources suggest a “session-based ad-supported access tier” to stream those purchased games will be offered to non-subscribers as soon as “this year.” You can do better than that That’s a moderately useful option for cloud-curious Xbox players that might not be willing to take the plunge on a monthly subscription, we suppose. But it also feels like Microsoft could come up with some more imaginative ways to use Cloud Gaming to reach occasional players in new ways. What’s stopping Microsoft from offer streaming players a 30-minute timed demo stream of any available Xbox Cloud Gaming title—perhaps in exchange for watching a short ad, or perhaps simply as an Xbox Live Arcade-style sales juicing tactic? Or why not offer discounted access to a streaming-only Game Pass subscription for players willing to watch occasional ads, like Netflix? Microsoft could even let players spend a couple of bucks to rent a digital copy of the title for a few days, much as services like iTunes do for newer films. Those are just a few ideas off the top of our heads. And they all feel potentially more impactful than using ads as a way to let Xbox players stream copies of games they already purchased. Back in 2019, we noted how Stadia’s strictly buy-before-you-play streaming business model limited the appeal of what ended up as a doomed cloud-gaming experiment. Microsoft should take some lessons from Google’s failure and experiment with new ways to use streaming to reach players that might not have access to the latest high-end hardware for their gaming experiences.