Xbox wants you to pay 24 to 40 cents per hour to stream games you bought

kotaKat

It's either that or a rumored $1200-$1800 for the next Xbox: https://www.techspot.com/news/114275-next-xbox-could-arrive-... The divide between those that can own their own consoles and those that are forced to feed the cloud quarter-by-quarter like an old-timey arcade is widening, and this sucks.

bossyTeacher

With Sony's scheming and this, the high-end console industry is killing itself.

bjord

frankly, if I'm playing a game I own on a remote server, I expect to pay something for that and I don't actually think that's substantially different from other competitors, like geforce now whether I will choose to play it on a different server in the first place is a different question (I won't)

ChrisRR

Sounds fair. If you essentially already have a TV or other device as a thin client, I can see many people happily paying $12 for 50 hours compared to spending $1000 on the entire console

Tangurena2

> Say what you will about the old arcade model, but you didn’t have to buy the cabinet and then pay a quarter per play I'm unhappy that the Kinect got removed from the Xbox and with this sort of nonsense, I won't be purchasing any sort of replacement from Microsoft.

m4rtink

The Xbox reboot seems to be going well - but looks more like Xbox shutdown from the outside.

krystalgamer

wonder if they can bring the cost down. with all the streaming needed it may be possible to cut down on all the fancy graphical effects.

bananzamba

The logical conclusion of piracy and AI reverse engineering is that mire and more games will become streaming exclusives

Terretta

While visiting not(USA) recently, found Xbox Cloud streaming no longer viable (lag fest) though last year travels (even over 5g hotspot) it was fine. Doesn't bode well for this streaming concept. Looked for a real console and discovered all small shops and big box chains offer Nintendo and PS, none have Xbox. Speaking with managers revealed they or their suppliers "lost" or "ended" contracts to carry it. Secondary market / used was dirt cheap – good condition consoles for less than a new controller: €35 for Xbox One S, €85 for Xbox Series S. Smelled like a death spiral well underway.

PcChip

It’s not unreasonable since you’re using their compute I mean I would never stream a game, but still

motbus3

Different from others, I don't think the price is fair. But also I don't know the cost structure well enough, I can have only an educated guess. But what I am definitely afraid of is that they will want to charge games per hour anyway. The talks that consoles will cost 2000 USD is part of it. They don't want you to own things anymore. You can't buy a house anymore, because they rather buy and keep it to create shortages and make you pay an absurd rent. We should be talking more about how taxes should fit into this world where they are positioning themselves to not allow people to have things, not even the basic. For examples, in the housing thing, it should not only have higher taxes for keeping properties empty but also it should be exponential otherwise it will become a cost to people. Making it exponential make it unviable. Also, investment funds should be much more regulated and should require approval for every transaction above a threshold (which imo should be small to close loopholes). This will slow things down enough. The demand will still exist but companies will fill the gap. We should not be relying on one single investment fund to control your health, housing and employment. We also should be discussing on closing all the gaps that ultra rich are using to not contribute back to the system they explore. They became leeches/parasites and not putting back the amount they should is causing them to be able to break the system more and more. The only Pacific way right now is to boy;cott these big fellas. They got to comfortable saying that we are trash and the blame of everything is on us while doing everything they can to not even pay basic rights to employees. I also think that if you know a trillionaire employee with a white collar, they also should get bit more pressure. I know someone working in a company which recently caused hundreds of "collateral" deaths, and for him and everyone in the company, it is not their fault they exploded innocent people. We need to put these folks back to reality, because they are the same type of trash as we are, and they don't know it. Now I guess it is obvious why they have been building so many bunkers lately. They were definitely conspiring. (Btw, I have a strong feeling that sxai+t might become an investment fund with several companies, but that's another conversation)

schnitzelstoat

I'd rather pay 40 cents per hour than have to pay really inflated prices for the games like Stadia had. Ultimately, you end up paying for the usage somehow.

SOLAR_FIELDS

2018 -wake up feeling sick after a late night of playing video games -excited to play some halo 2k19 -"xbox on" -... -"XBOX ON" -"Please verify that you are "annon332" by saying "Doritos™ Dew™ it right!" -"Doritos™ Dew™ it right" -"ERROR! Please drink a verification can" -reach into my Doritos™ Mountain Dew™ Halo 2k19™ War Chest -only a few cans left, needed to verify 14 times last night -still feeling sick from the 14 -force it down and grumble out "mmmm that really hit the spot" -xbox does nothing -i attempt to smile -"Connecting to verification server" -... -"Verification complete!" -finally -boot up halo 2k19 -finding multiplayer match... -"ERROR! User attempting to steal online gameplay!" -my mother just walked in the room -"Adding another user to your pass, this will be charged to your credit card. Do you accept?" -"NO!" -"Console entering lock state!" Nueva Yo -"to unlock drink verification can" -last can -"WARNING, OUT OF VERIFICATION CANS, an order has been shipped and charged to your credit card" -drink half the can, oh god im going to be sick -pour the last half out the window -"PIRACY DETECTED! PLEASE COMPLETE THIS ADVERTISEMENT TO CONTINUE" -the mountain dew ad plays -i have to dance for it -feeling so sick -makes me sing along -dancing and singing -"mountain dew is for me and you" -throw up on my self -throw up on my tv and entertainment system -router shorts -"ERROR NO CONNECTION! XBOX SHUTTING OFF" -"PLEASE DRINK VERIFICATION CAN TO CONTINUE"

trey-jones

I have a server running in my basement with 2 nvidia Tesla GPUs that I bought for ~$70 each on ebay. (Unfortunately the RAM cost an arm and a leg). I built it for inference, but I also set it up to run sunshine server and now I have my Steam library on the TV through a Raspberry Pi 3. Even better, it was a fun and interesting project, maybe not as straightforward as you think. Unfortunately it's entirely possible that it costs .24/hr just for the electricity. Now, this feels fine with <10ms input latency over wifi. Even in 2026 I'm skeptical about sending my input to Atlanta and back.

otikik

Oh no! Anyway...

rvz

> In September, when Microsoft severely limited the game-streaming buffet available to Game Pass subscribers, the company said non-subscribers would soon be able to “purchase cloud playtime hours through the Xbox Store and stream eligible games they own on supported devices.” Game pass always has been a scam [0] for years and now here we have the ghost of Stadia in Xbox services as streaming games make it into non subscribers. You will still own nothing, stream everything and be very happy when the game is simulated with a world model. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33362792

ocd

Eventually, US intellectual property law will have the legitimacy of deeds for property on the Moon.

zurn

How does this compare to Geforce Now cost, where AIUI you also play games you bought?

muyuu

i find the entire concept alien and i have zero interest in becoming a customer in such models, so i'm not into it and i might be misinterpreting things, but aren't those games you never "bought" in the first place? i mean, it sounds like it's a subscription plan and some extra session passes added on, not like you actually bought a game at any point, correct me if i'm wrong

paxy

Why do they keep stressing the "games you already bought!!!" part? There is no charge to play the game on your own hardware. This pricing is for renting the GPUs, same as GeForce Now and plenty of other services. And it's a pretty solid deal for people who don't want to build a multi-thousand dollar rig for gaming 10-20 hours a week.