from the death-knell dept

Microsoft Slaps Hours Limits On Xbox Game Pass Cloud Gaming

There’s enshittification, and then there’s enshittification. Allow me to give you an example of each. For what we’ll call enshittification classic, there’s Xbox’s Game Pass service. A mere two years ago, Microsoft made all kinds of changes to Game Pass to coincide with a serious slowdown of subscriber adoption. Those changes included doing away with previous service tiers, introducing new tiers that came in at higher prices, the removal of day-1 access to first party titles for some of the tiers and some hardware even at those higher prices. So, Microsoft shifted the offering for Game Pass in a way that made it cost significantly more, while providing less value.

But for the next tier of enshittification, there’s… Xbox’s Game Pass service. If you thought the devaluing of the service the last go around was shitty, wait until you get a load of Microsoft’s plan to slap an hours limit for its cloud gaming onto those same subscriptions.

Microsoft has announced big changes to Xbox cloud gaming, including a switch to monthly hour limits. From November, Game Pass plans will include a set number of cloud gaming hours each month:

   •  Game Pass Ultimate: 15 hours

   •  Game Pass Premium: 10 hours

   •  Game Pass Essential: 5 hours

Now, if confronted, Microsoft has a couple of things to say about all of this and why you shouldn’t worry about it. First, anyone that exhausts their subscription hours can, you guessed it, simply buy more. Want to engage in as much cloud gaming as you did before? No problem! Fork over even more money than the already raised tier prices and you can go right ahead.

Second, and this is where I’ll engage in some blatant speculation, Microsoft said these changes will barely effect anyone at all.

The change means those who use cloud gaming most via Game Pass will end up having to pay more, although Microsoft said this impacts 4% of Game Pass subscribers.

See? It’s only 4% of subscribers that will run out of these tiered hours. Where does my speculation come in? Oh, simple: I think Microsoft is full of shit on that number. What informs that speculation? Oh, simple: Microsoft also says more people are engaging in cloud gaming and playing it for longer periods of time.

In a blog post, Microsoft said it was making the changes because the cost of providing cloud gaming has grown as more people use it and play for longer. The monthly limits, Microsoft continued, will mean it can invest in reliability and performance.

So, to summarize, Microsoft had to put in these hours limits because more and more people are gaming in the cloud for longer and longer amounts of time… but those limits are no big deal because very few people game long enough to exhaust those hours? I’m no mathematician, but I don’t think those two statements can exist in the same reality.

What’s really driving all of this is a combination of the predictable enshittification process tech offerings like this tend to travel down and the explosion in cost of the hardware needed to run the backend of it all, thanks to the adoption of A.I. platforms. And, hey, those rising additional costs to Microsoft are very real.

But so is the reduction in value of Game Pass as a result of all of this. Cloud gaming is likely the future of gaming. But I’m no longer sure Game Pass is going to be a player in that future.