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Microsoft is finally pushing cloud streaming to lower Game Pass tiers.
They made this announcement on their site:
Xbox Insiders subscribed to Xbox Game Pass Core or Standard now have even more freedom to play wherever they are with Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta).
As part of this Insider experience, Xbox Game Pass Core and Standard subscribers will be able to stream cloud playable games included with their subscription or select cloud playable games they own, making it easier to jump in from any supported device.
They also revealed that Game Pass Core and Standard subscribers can also start playing a selection of their games on PC.
Microsoft Needed To Do This Much Earlier
This could be great value for Game Pass subscribers when they roll it out to everyone in these tiers. But Microsoft could have done this much earlier.
When Microsoft overhauled Game Pass last year, they raised prices for Game Pass Core at the same time that they introduced Game Pass Standard.
At the time, we opined that these changes were ultimately better for gamers. That’s because the lower priced Game Pass tiers didn’t include online multiplayer. While a lot of gamers prefer single player experiences, Xbox’s library, and their own games, lean towards multiplayer heavily.
So, instead of tricking their gamers into spending much more for online multiplayer, Microsoft shared multiplayer to more tiers and adjusted their prices accordingly.
Of course, it’s understandable that some subscribers would not be happy about this. They also lost Day One access to certain games.
Overall, Xbox gamers are likely to stay loyal. But Microsoft clearly needed to sweeten the deal for their customers, especially the loyal ones.
This Is Also About Making All Their Services Popular
So on one side of things, Microsoft should have done this as a service to their customers. On the other hand, they also benefit from spreading these services around.
That’s because they will want more gamers using cloud streaming and Xbox PC in general. A bigger user base for these services makes those services more profitable and justifies their investment too.
They will get more feedback to make cloud streaming and Xbox PC better. And there’s the potential that word of mouth will get them more customers for these services, regardless of how they come in.
As things stand, Game Pass Ultimate provides the best value for gamers. Even with the higher prices, they still offer a multitude of services which would cost a pretty penny if you picked them up from different places separately.
But this change means Game Pass will be great value in general. How much gamers benefit from this depends on how invested they are in gaming. But it will make Game Pass that much better for gamers and the industry.
