Xbox Cloud Gaming Will Get Ad-Supported Tier This Year

With sales of its consoles falling, Xbox has started looking at other sources of raising its revenues. According to Windows Central, one of these sources looks like it will be through advertising to players using Xbox Cloud Gaming. The publication has noted that Xbox Cloud Gaming players have recently started seeing a splash screen notifying them that “1 hour of ad supported playtime per session” will be allowed.

The Verge’s Tom Warren has further corroborated this, noting that this notification has nothing to do with Xbox Game Pass. Rather, it will be a new ad-supported free version of Xbox Cloud Gaming. Currently, Xbox Cloud Gaming can only be accessed if you have an active subscription to Xbox Game Pass. The ad-supported tier seems to be a new way for Microsoft to bolster its revenue from the Xbox division.

While Microsoft itself hasn’t yet confirmed that ads are being rolled out to Xbox Cloud Gaming through any official announcement, it had spoken about the idea last year. According to Windows Central, the company had said that it would display advertisements on Xbox Cloud Gaming for those who may have purchased games to play through the service but didn’t have a Game Pass subscription.

Xbox Cloud Gaming, along with other cloud-based gaming platforms like Nvidia’s GeForce Now have a chance of coming back into fashion despite Google’s disastrous attempt with Stadia having left a bad taste in many players’ mouths. Thanks to the recent memory shortages leading to gaming hardware becoming gradually more difficult to acquire, players might start looking for a way to experience their games without having to worry about how much a new set of RAM sticks will cost for their gaming PCs, or how many more price hikes the Xbox Series X/S has gone through since last year.

The service and Microsoft’s plans to expand its user base likely stems from the company hedging its bets with its future console releases. The fact that a new Xbox console is in the works, while still the subject of rumours, should come as no surprise. Xbox president Sarah Bond even went as far as confirming that there is more Xbox hardware coming, describing it as being “very premium” and “very high-end”.

As part of an interview about the launch of the ROG Xbox Ally X and Xbox Ally handheld gaming PCs, Bond spoke about the next-generation console, and the idea that gamers may have moved beyond the idea of console-exclusive games.

“The biggest games in the world are available everywhere,” she continued. “You look at Call of Duty, you look at Minecraft, you look at Fortnite, you look at Roblox. That’s actually what’s really driving community in gaming. That’s where people gather. The idea of locking it to one store or one device is antiquated for most people. You want to be able to play with your friends anywhere, regardless of what they’re on. And we’re really leaning into that with [the ROG Xbox Ally] because it just opens up another way for you to play. As does cloud, as does PC, as do the consoles that we all own and have in our living rooms.”