Thus far, Microsoft is pursuing a greater hand in the mobile market – plenty thanks to its Xbox Cloud Gaming infrastructure. Even more, with the recently finalized Activision Blizzard King deal, more content is on the way for the service. And at The Game Awards, the first major title for this effort was revealed. Hideo Kojima accompanied by movie auteur Jordan Peele.
Exploring the possibilities that Microsoft is eyeing to open its doors to, players are keeping eyes peeled for an announcement. Previously, one document shared internal discussions to bring support to PlayStation 5. Furthermore, another email suggested Xbox Cloud Gaming to implement PC game streaming for platform-unique titles as well in the near future.
From TweakTown, it is revealed that Microsoft is also considering a free tier for Xbox Cloud Gaming. What gives this decision a solid foundation is that it will integrate ads for users to see in use. TweakTown transcribes the statement made from the Wells Fargo TMT Summit in November.
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?’
Tim Stuart, Microsoft Gaming CFO
“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,” Stuart adds. What’s more, this effort does coincide with previous efforts carried by Microsoft to integrate ads into its platform. It also holds the same energy in a recent report for its own mobile gaming store to compete opposing Google Play & App Store, interesting enough.
What Microsoft should do before pursuing yet another tier – since it already added one back in September – is finish its promise for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members. In that, it is to offer widespread purchase library support for active subscribers which was originally instated back in summer 2021. You can read the initial report by heading here.
What is your thoughts on this new effort from Xbox?