Xbox introduces charges for additional cloud gaming hours — Fortune

Xbox has launched the Cloud Playtime service, which allows Game Pass subscribers to purchase additional cloud gaming hours after exhausting their available limit. Some users criticized the new payment model, as cloud gaming had previously been positioned as a cheaper alternative to buying a console and individual games, Fortune reports.

How much additional hours cost

Game Pass subscribers pay from $10 to $23 per month and receive between five and 15 hours of cloud gaming. At the same time, games downloaded to a console remain available without time limits.

Through Cloud Playtime, users can purchase additional time for streaming games: 10 hours cost $4, 25 hours cost $8, and 50 hours cost $12. In September, Xbox had already changed the terms of access to Cloud Gaming by introducing limits on the number of hours instead of unlimited access within the monthly subscription.

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Criticism of the subscription model

Video blogger Yong Yea said that rising payments for game streaming undermine the argument that cloud gaming is affordable. He also noted that users pay for access to games but do not become their owners, as they would when buying a physical copy.

Fortune notes that the changes are taking place amid a restructuring of the Xbox business due to declining hardware sales and a reduction in the number of Game Pass subscribers. The division cut about 3,200 jobs, or 20% of its workforce, and also began releasing some former exclusives, including Halo, on competing platforms.

The issue of ownership rights to digital games has also become the subject of a legal dispute in California: four Sony customers filed a class-action lawsuit, claiming that the company did not explain clearly enough the licensing nature of purchasing downloadable PlayStation games. Sony is asking the court to dismiss the ongoing case.