Microsoft Is Teasing Free Cloud Gameplay For Watching Ads

Microsoft could soon be making an interesting offer to expand Game Pass to more markets.

As reported by Tweaktown, Xbox CFO Tim Stewart is once again dishing about Xbox. What he is talking about this time, though, is starting a new model where you can watch ads in exchange for gametime on streaming.

Tim did not elaborate if this was something that would be Xbox console only, or could be offered on PC or even mobile. But he did bring up the exchange rate for ads to playtime, and it’s very interesting. Here’s what he said:

“It also helps us, maybe lastly, on geographic expansion. The vision I like to talk about is we have xCloud game streaming, so you can subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate and you can stream hundreds of games to really any endpoint that has a browser experience.

For models like Africa, or India, Southeast Asia, maybe places that aren’t console-first, you can say, ‘hey, do you want to watch 30 seconds of an ad and then get two hours of game streaming?’

Africa is, you know, 50% of the population is 23 years old or younger with a growing disposable income base, all with cell phones and mobile devices, not a lot of high-end disposable income, generally-speaking.

So we can go in with our own business models and say…there’s millions and millions of gamers we would never have been able to address there, and now we can go in with our business models.”

As Tim pointed out, this will probably not be offered in the US or Europe. To acknowledge global realities, even if Americans or Europeans believe they are facing growing financial struggles, they really can’t compare themselves to what gamers deal with in Africa or Asia.

In those markets, many people may face concerns that they don’t have enough money to get by. Even for gamers who can afford to buy consoles, they may balk at the cost, not just to acquire platforms, but to keep paying for them. For better or worse, many gamers for free-to-play games do come from these regions, growing player bases for games looking for whales.

But a new business model that will allow these gamers to play retail games, the games that they can’t play otherwise, that would be enticing for them indeed. But of course, questions arise about online gaming in regions where internet is too expensive or unreliable.

So this isn’t a guaranteed slam dunk for Microsoft, but it’s an interesting prospect, not just for the company, but for gamers who can’t play these kinds of games otherwise. We may see a future where gamers in these regions don’t just settle for Genshin Impact anymore.