Whomever is in charge of idiomatic statements really needs to amend the old “death and taxes” cliché to add another inevitable outcome: ads. Xbox is the latest provider of streaming services to test the waters of an advertisement-based tier for Xbox Cloud Gaming. You may even be able to play without paying for a Game Pass subscription.
On Thursday, Xbox declared it would start a “test and learn” period for this ad-based game streaming service. The test program is only available to those signed up to the Xbox Insiders beta program on devices that already support Xbox Cloud Gaming. The company promised its ads will be relevant and reach “the same quality bar as our content.” I assume that means our first commercials will be for several varieties of Mountain Dew.
When you start up the ad-based cloud gaming session, you’ll see an ad before you’re allowed to start playing. The company promises it won’t interrupt your session to force a commercial down your throat and that you should be able to play a full hour of cloud gaming with this service. If you already pay for Game Pass and have access to cloud gaming, you should be able to select whether or not you want to try the ad-based streaming.
This first attempt at ad-based cloud gaming is only an initial trial. We don’t know if Xbox is considering making this ad-based cloud gaming service free or whether it will offer the service in a cheaper subscription tier. Over email, Xbox tells Gizmodo that “the test is designed to help give more people more affordable ways to play on devices they already own.”
“Advertising has existed in gaming for decades, from in-game placements to free-to-play models,” Xbox writes in its blog post. “But it hasn’t always been built with the player in mind. When done well, advertising can help lower the cost of access. It creates another way for players to get into games without an upfront streaming purchase and expands audiences through new ways to play.”
Xbox has been considering using ads inside Game Pass for a while now. Last year, Microsoft hiked the price of the subscription’s Ultimate tier to $30 a month. Recently installed CEO Asha Sharma then backtracked and brought the price back down to a more reasonable $22 per month.
That’s still pricey, and it’s become more clear that Game Pass hasn’t worked out as previous leadership hoped it would. Recent reporting from The Wall Street Journal claims the company is sitting at around 30 million subscribers, with many abandoning ship after last year’s price hike SNAFU. Xbox reportedly hopes to hit 77 million subscribers by the end of 2026.
Adding a cheap or free ad-based tier to Game Pass is also a way to get potential gamers more interested in Xbox’s slate of titles. After last month’s latest price hike, an Xbox Series S starts at $500, while a Series X without a disc drive demands $750. It’s a price that many gamers simply can’t afford. The next, inevitable step is to push a hardware-agnostic alternative to gamers, even if it means suffering through even more ads.
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