Xbox Cloud Gaming has been steadily enjoying increased popularity over the past few years, thanks to its relatively cheap cost of entry, and the fact that it is supported on more than a dozen devices.
Xbox might be looking to sweeten the deal further though, with the addition of an entirely free cloud gaming tier, but one that includes ad segments. It does raise the question of availability, and of whether this is a cost effective way of playing games, in the wake of the pricing of recent PC components (thanks to AI).
Xbox to Offer a Free Ad Supported Cloud Gaming Tier
Xbox’s cloud gaming service is all set to receive a new tier that will be entirely free to use for most regions, but will include adverts. These adverts will be pushed pre roll; which in other words means that they won’t interrupt you once you start playing.
The duration of the advert is expected to be around two minutes, and will let you stream from a select library of digital titles, in addition to being stream your locally installed game library.
It certainly is a tempting offer, and perhaps the only cost effective gateway into the world of video games, given the current predicament with memory shortages thanks to increased computational requirements from AI datacenters.
In other words, you won’t be able to buy a gaming PC (or even a console soon) unless you pay a premium.
The Deal Is Expected to Get Worse Over Time
While the Xbox offer seems tempting, we have to keep in mind that it only includes a select number of titles. It’s very likely that newer, day one releases will be kept locked to the paid tiers, as a way to nudge players into buying it.
There’s also the fact that Xbox could change this deal anytime. What’s stopping them from implementing mid roll ads, and even increasing the number of ads on display?
Furthermore, cloud streaming brings with it the issue of latency, which can be a problem depending on your internet connection. Nothing beats running a game locally though, which is an involved (but informational and fun) process in of itself. More so when you take into account that you’ll actually own these games.
