Free Xbox cloud gaming comes with its caveats
Obviously, the big one here is ads. As reported by The Verge, the new option for the cloud gaming feature will include ads that users will have to watch as a trade-off for getting the feature at no monetary cost. Such is the way of things in this day and age, where every other streaming service of any kind seems to have a free, ad-supported option.
There are other caveats, too. The Verge states that this ad-supported model will let you stream some games. This appears to include some games that you own, as well as Xbox Retro Classics and Free Play Days game titles. By the sounds of it, that means a large chunk of the game library that paid cloud gaming users have access to will be left out.
There may be session limits
It’s being reported that Microsoft aims to offer this on handheld devices, consoles, the web, and PC. There’s no mention of mobile device access. Additionally, this free version may have hourly limits. Specifically, one-hour sessions, as well as five free hours a month. One-hour sessions may not sound like a lot. However, Microsoft’s limits may work similarly to how they do on GeForce NOW. Which is to say you may simply have to stop after an hour, then restart a brand-new session. Which would incur another wait time if there was one.
