Back when Xbox Cloud Gaming was still in its infancy, during the late 2019 Project xCloud preview, Microsoft promised via Corporate VP Kareem Choudhry that players would be able to play their owned games via cloud in 2020.
That feature never materialized, leaving Xbox Cloud Gaming tied exclusively to the Game Pass Ultimate subscription. However, Microsoft is still working on it. In fact, an Xbox user was able to get an update straight from Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer.
A known gamer, Spencer often interacts with the community while playing games. In this case, Xbox user NASburg asked him about the status of this feature and the executive replied it ‘should’ arrive to the wider public at some point in 2024. That would still be four years after the original timetable, but as they say, later is better than never.
Microsoft made a big bet on Xbox Cloud Gaming, assuming it would be the best way to expand core games to the massive mobile market, but adoption has been slow, to say the least. According to Newzoo’s latest report, there are only about 39.6 million paying cloud users as of the end of 2023, although that might rise to 85.1 million by 2026. The acquisition of Activision Blizzard might have paved the way for acceleration, but Microsoft was forced to sell the global cloud gaming rights for the next 15 years of these games to Ubisoft as part of the United Kingdom’s regulator request to wave the deal through. As such, players across the world will have to subscribe to Ubisoft+ if they want to play those games via cloud, with the notable exception of European players who are protected by Microsoft’s previous deal with the European Commission and will therefore be able to freely stream via any cloud game streaming services of their choice all current and future Activision Blizzard PC and console games for which they have a license.
