The details:
- The caps break down by tier: Game Pass Ultimate at 15 hours, Game Pass Premium at 10 hours, and Game Pass Essential at 5 hours per month. Microsoft says the change is expected to directly affect around 4% of Game Pass subscribers, suggesting the majority of players already use cloud gaming sparingly.
- Microsoft's stated justification is the computational cost of running cloud streaming at scale, noting that costs grow as more players use the service for longer sessions. No pricing has been announced for additional hours yet, with more details coming in November.
- The announcement draws a sharper line around what Game Pass's cloud offering actually is, and how much of that cost Microsoft is willing to absorb per subscriber. The change arrives just weeks after GTA 6's November 19 launch, which is likely to be one of the heaviest periods of cloud gaming demand in the service's history.
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