In a normal scenario, Sony and Microsoft should start talking openly about their new consoles. We should have more rumors about an Xbox series and a PS5 successor that has been on the market for six years. However, there is one thing that is being talked about: Both the PS6 and the Xbox Helix are going to be expensive. Very expensive, if we look at the range between 1,200 and 1,800 dollars that Microsoft manages for the new Xbox.
The material crisis caused by the rise of artificial intelligence, particularly NAND, has caused two things. On the one hand, hardware companies slow down their launch plans. On the other hand, what they launch is very expensive. We’re seeing this with mobile phones, but consoles are one of the devices that will exemplify the changing landscape in 2020 and when they launch.
And of course, if the hardware is going to be too expensive, it’s easy to think that the solution could be streaming game services like GeForce Now, PlayStation Now or Game Pass. There’s just one problem: At least Xbox is already laying the groundwork so that, if you don’t want or can’t afford the next console, you’ll have to dig deep to play in the cloud.
Price for playing on Xbox Cloud
A few weeks ago we already mentioned that Xbox made an important change to its Game Pass policy. If a few months ago they confirmed that the subscription service was going to decline because they would stop offering ‘Call of Duty’ at launch, recently they commented that the streaming game function would also undergo changes.
Because sheetification, or refoulement if you prefer to look at it that way, doesn’t just reach the potato sack, and starting in November, there will be very serious restrictions on cloud gaming time. So far if we pay for the ultimate plan we can play unlimited, in a few days things will look like this:
- Game Pass Ultimate members will have 15 hours of gameplay per streaming per month.
- Game Pass will be available to Premium members 10 hours of play per streaming per month.
- Game Pass will have essential members Five hours of play per streaming per month.
15 hours of gaming per month with a plan over 20 euros is too little, but of course, it’s not like they’re withdrawing your service, rather they’re doing it so they can charge for the extra time package. In a message to Xbox insiders, who can try things out ahead of time, they confirmed The price of that time package:
- 10 hours – $3.99
- 25 hours – $7.99
- 50 hours – $11.99
With the length of some games, some calculations are necessary as it is possible that it is better to buy the title or wait for a discount. On the other hand, the company has also hinted that Insider members can try out Xbox Cloud Gaming for free in exchange for viewing ads.
When Xbox announced the move, it commented that “moving to a monthly limit allows us to continue offering the service and continue to invest in its reliability and performance,” while also acknowledging that the change “will only affect 4% of Game Pass subscribers.”
And yes, it seems that there will be some people who will suffer from the new system, but we return to the topics at the beginning of the article. At a time when buying a six-year-old console is much more expensive than buying it when it launched (note that, in the case of the Xbox, series Streaming gaming takes on an importance it didn’t have in the past.
Choosing good network connections is increasingly easier and it’s not so much about line speed anymore, but good routers that allow you to take advantage of it have also been on the market for some time, so this cloud game is more useful and necessary than ever.
This is something that, obviously, also uses the bandwidth of the companies that offer the service (remember that Microsoft has Azure, one of the largest server networks in the world), but putting up these barriers, with gaming sessions so expensive in the cloud when until recently they were included in Game Pass on an unlimited basis, could drive away potential users.
And the alternative is to buy a consoleWait for the latter or get a PC, but there we come back to the wall of machines costing insanely expensive and components insanely expensive due to demand for an AI exploding the consumer market.
From the point of view of companies like Nvidia or Microsoft, the move is not so negative. Both pushed the line To make up for the lack of cost, both offer hardware to play on which is now more expensive and if you want to continue enjoying, both have an alternative service to the console: the cloud. While Microsoft has already made a move by removing Game Pass streaming, it remains to be seen what Nvidia does with PlayStation by integrating its PS Now into its GeForce Now or PlayStation Plus.
I also tell you though, let them pay whatever price they want because at the rate the industry ends up with studios (Bioware being the latest), we’ll see who makes games for future generations. Maybe start looking less at the PS6 and more at the physical catalog of past generations that will forever be associated with you.
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