Microsoft Might Offer Free Xbox Cloud Gaming With Ads - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 January 2024 / 4,105 Views
Xbox chief financial officer Tim Stuart recently suggested Microsoft could potentially offer Xbox Cloud Gaming streaming for free with an ad-supported model.
"The vision I like to talk about is we have xCloud game streaming, so you can subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate and you can stream hundreds of games to really any endpoint that has a browser experience," said Stuart (via TweakTown).
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I'd watch thirty seconds of an ad for two hours of free gaming!
More options to access video games is always preferable, in my opinion. I have no problem with ads during loading or pause screens, or when I first turned the thing on, or things like that. In fact, I think that's a great way for the industry to generate revenue without substantially impacting me.
Not something I'll ever be in favor of.
Oh boy.
i would give this a shot and see if i have the patience for ads.
No way. I tried watching youtube after being on premium for years, and the amount of adds u sit through is insane. Nearly died
Seriously?? I never signed up to premium and never will.
Thought premium is ads free?
Yes premium is add free. What I meant is I tried watching youtube on a regual service without premium, and the amount of adds were staggering.
honestly... at that point, I would be in, just to mess around when theres a game that looks intresting.
Considering in Brazil it is common for 20min wait time to start the game with paid Xcloud I don't even want to see how it would turn out with free XCloud and perhaps they would put Ads during the whole waiting time.
I think the wait times to start xcloud games is a problem everywhere. I'm in the US, and I encounter it probably 5% of the time that I try to stream (which isn't very often, but still).
How would it work? What would be the frequency of ads, and how intrusive would they be? I cannot imagine playing and getting a sudden add that disrupts the game and forces me to start all over.
Playing Candy Crush without spending money on it, gives you an idea.
Perhaps after a level fail, first need to watch 30 seconds of ads before a retry.
I'm guessing in this scenario game will still need to be acquired either individually or through a subs. If that's the case then I do not think there really that much demand for it, but still it's an added option and it may be better for some than nothing.
This is how GeForce Now works, you have to buy/own the game to even play it via streaming. They already offer 1 hour free streaming sessions just for owning the game and signing up. The key here is about how long until that 30 seconds for 2 hours suddenly turns into 1 minutes for 1 hours etc. We all know how things like youtube has changed over the years. :P
We see something similar with other streaming services like Hulu or Disney+. Seems that making subscription services profitable isn't easy and options are explored.
Here we go , friendly consumer big corpo!?!?
Sony doubt they will do this since they killed something sumilar after they got crunchyroll
How is that not consumer friendly? Consumer has the choice to pay or get those games for free. How the hell can you see this as not consumer friendly is mind blowing. Even with your bias.
It is, yet, another fully optional option to get GamePass. And if you pay for it you are not getting any ads like any other service out there.
They are not your friends and sooner or later will be ads everywhere even you with your own bias can see it.
how many businesses and people out there are your friends? it always businesses or selfishness.
There are not your "friends"; who said that...? those are businesses You do understand what "consumer friendly" means right, it has nothing to do with being your "friends" ? lol
Man you are something...
You realise that companies that did this in the past is to annoy the shit out of you for you to buy the them thing.
The ads option will make it possible to raise the paid version's prices, without risking losing overall player base.
This happened with other subscription services like Hulu
