Microsoft is letting some Xbox Insiders stream games from the cloud without paying for Xbox Game Pass at all. They just have to pay by the hour instead.
The test, which PCMag reported on Saturday, opens cloud playtime purchases to select members of the free Xbox Insider program. Three packs are on offer: $3.99 for 10 hours, $7.99 for 25 hours, and $11.99 for 50 hours. Do the math and the price per hour drops as the pack gets bigger, from about 40 cents down to roughly 24 cents.
Hours don't expire and carry over from month to month, so nobody is forced to burn through a pack before a deadline. There's a catch, though. Buying cloud time doesn't unlock anything new to play. Users still need to already own the game, or it has to be one of the free-to-play titles eligible for cloud streaming. Microsoft also warns that which games qualify, and whether the feature works at all, depends on your market, your device and which Insider preview ring you're on.
A longer runway for cloud-only players
This isn't Microsoft's first swing at letting non-subscribers into cloud gaming. Back in July, Xbox opened up free, ad-supported cloud streaming to Insiders without Game Pass, but capped each session at one hour. The paid packs now being tested look like the next rung on that ladder, giving players who don't want ads, or who want to play longer than an hour in one sitting, a way to pay for exactly what they use.
Microsoft says purchasable playtime is set to roll out more broadly in November, beyond the current Insider test. Whether paying 24 to 40 cents an hour beats a $9.99-and-up Game Pass tier is going to depend entirely on how much someone actually streams in a given month, and that's a calculation every subscriber is going to have to run for themselves.
Game Pass caps are also changing in November
The timing isn't a coincidence. Microsoft announced in early September that it would start capping cloud playtime for Game Pass subscribers, something it had never done before. Those caps take effect in November alongside the broader launch of paid hourly playtime. From that point, Game Pass Ultimate subscribers get 15 hours of cloud streaming a month included, Game Pass Premium gets 10, and Game Pass Essential gets 5.
Anyone who blows through their included hours will presumably be pointed toward the same hourly packs now in testing with Insiders. Microsoft hasn't said what happens to streaming beyond those caps for subscribers who don't want to buy more, or whether the Insider pricing will carry over unchanged once the feature goes wide next month.
GDFiled by The Games Desk
Consoles, handhelds, PC gaming and the platforms and hardware behind them.
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