Xbox has started selling cloud gaming by the hour to people who don't subscribe to Game Pass. Since October 21, members of the Xbox Insider testing program can buy Cloud Playtime packs: 10 hours for $3.99, 25 hours for $7.99 or 50 hours for $11.99, according to Xbox Wire. Microsoft plans to open purchases to everyone in November.
The day before, Fortune reported that Xbox is planning a Game Pass overhaul that would let players pick and pay for features individually. The playtime packs are official and priced. The à la carte plan comes from anonymous sources, and Microsoft hasn't confirmed it.
What an hour of Cloud Playtime costs
The small pack works out to about 40 cents an hour. The 25-hour pack drops that to 32 cents, and the 50-hour pack to 24. Xbox calls the prices introductory, so they may rise or fall at the wider launch, and it says options will vary by market.
Hours stay on your account until you use them. Paid sessions run without ads, and Xbox says queues are shorter. The packs cover cloud-enabled games you already own plus some free-to-play titles. Windows Central says streams top out at roughly 1080p, or Full HD.
Insiders are also testing a free, ad-supported option. In that version, Windows Central explains, an ad plays every 30 minutes and you have to rejoin the queue to keep playing. The paid packs remove both.
What it means if you already pay for Game Pass
Starting in November, Game Pass cloud streaming gets a monthly cap: 15 hours on Ultimate, 10 on Premium and five on Essential, as we covered when Xbox announced the cloud hour limits. At the time, Xbox said subscribers could buy extra time in its store but didn't say how much it would cost. Cloud Playtime is the first price list Xbox has published for cloud hours.
The October 21 post, however, is aimed at players without an active Game Pass membership, and it doesn't say whether a member who runs out of hours will pay the same rates, or whether purchased hours will work with games from the catalog. If the rates do carry over, an Ultimate member who streams 25 hours a month would need 10 more and could cover them with the $3.99 pack. Games installed on a console or PC don't use cloud hours at all.
À la carte Game Pass is only a report so far
Fortune says Game Pass would stop being sold only as fixed bundles. Players would choose add-ons for console-only games, cloud gaming and online multiplayer, within a structure that would still have tiers. The report gives no timing or prices, and Microsoft hasn't commented on the plan.
Today, all three console plans include online multiplayer and some cloud hours, and they differ mainly in catalog size and whether new Xbox games arrive on day one. Splitting those pieces apart could let someone pay for multiplayer alone, but the price of each add-on will decide whether Game Pass gets cheaper or more expensive. Fortune also quotes former employees who say Game Pass ate into sales of Xbox's own games at launch, when they sell for the most.
Xbox keeps cutting while the service changes
The same Fortune story says Xbox has cut 1,868 jobs as part of a plan to eliminate 3,200 over a year, with more rounds expected this month, in November and in January, as Push Square summarizes. The division already raised console prices in August.
An internal memo first reported by The Verge and covered by Pure Xbox also requires Xbox employees who live within 50 miles of Redmond to work from the office four days a week instead of three, starting February 1, 2027. The memo says that covers thousands of people.
The conversation starts here
Sign in with a supporter account to comment. Sign in
Nobody has commented yet. Want to go first?