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[Draugoth]

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Changes in the Xbox website Json seem to indicate Fortnite session time on Xbox Cloud Gaming Will Be Limited, possibily extending to other fremium games in the future.

The informat owas discovered by Better XCloud (@redphx), Xbox Cloud Gaming is likely to limit session time for free-to-play players (Fortnite)

The measure should improve traffic and queues for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers who access Xbox Cloud Gaming, and who will now have priority access to games.

Source

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Cloud gaming is really expensive for providers - even if companies like MS and Amazon own their servers, they still essentially have to pay for that capacity. This doesn't surprise me at all.

 

[Bungie]

iPad kids are about to be pissed.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

and limit growth and engagement on younger generations?!?!?!! the very things Phil always is bitching about?!?!!

 

[MayauMiao]

Yeah this is why I see "Xbox Everywhere" initiative is bullshit.

 

[Heisenberg007]

No, Phil would never do that!

 

[SimTourist]

These fortnite kids spend way more money on microtransactions than standard 60 bucks, they should get preferential treatment if anything

 

[El Muerto]

There's plenty of other ways to play it, idk why people are choosing xcloud specifically. The game is available on every console and android/ios devices. You can even play it through Amazon's Luna on the fire stick.

 

[rm082e]

Cloud gaming is not a profitable business unless the provider gets more money from players than those players would spend buying their own hardware. The idea that this is the future has always been nonsense. Any players who have been cheering it on are drinking corpo kool-aid.

 

[coachmcguirk91]

Cloud gaming is not a profitable business unless the provider gets more money from players than those players would spend buying their own hardware. The idea that this is the future has always been nonsense. Any players who have been cheering it on are drinking corpo kool-aid.

I would happily pay 5$ a month for a higher bitrate on Xcloud. IDK why they haven't started doing that. Xcloud is quite terrible. It's annoying for me because Geforce isn't available on my TV, only Xcloud

 

[rm082e]

I would happily pay 5$ a month for a higher bitrate on Xcloud. IDK why they haven't started doing that. Xcloud is quite terrible. It's annoying for me because Geforce isn't available on my TV, only Xcloud

The higher the bit rate, the worse the latency gets. Prior to Xcloud being playable, they tried talk it up like it was some magic Microsoft voodoo. Once technical people got their hands on the service, it became obvious all they are doing is serving players a lower bit rate version of the video in an attempt to optimize for latency. That might not be an issue for you depending on how close you are to the server and how sensitive you are to latency.

 

[Mr Moose]

Why would anyone play that on cloud shite?

 

[GHG]

These fortnite kids spend way more money on microtransactions than standard 60 bucks, they should get preferential treatment if anything

They aren't spending enough in their eyes.

Don't be surprised if they eventually make a new tier of subscription that will remove any limitations.

 

[onQ123]

But isn't Fortnite playable almost everywhere?

Just switch to a different device when your time is up

 

[Topher]

This is among the reasons why I have serious doubts about this claim that cloud is this singular inevitable future for gaming that we will all be forced to embrace "whether we like it or not".

 

[recursive]

You will own nothing and like it. You will also only be able to use it for the amount of time i let you. You will like that too.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

But it's the future! Lmao

 

[mitch1971]

Yeah this is why I see "Xbox Everywhere" initiative is bullshit.

XBOX SOMETIMES

 

[poppabk]

How are they getting that from that text?

 

[SScorpio]

It might be time to switch to Luna. If you have an Amazon Prime subscription you already have it. You can access FortNite, Rocket League, Festive, etc through it.

 

[Topher]

How are they getting that from that text?

The image references a session time limitation.

 

[ReBurn]

It would make sense to give paying customers priority access if the service gets busy, wouldn't it? Why should someone who pays for GPU have to wait for a Fortnite kid to finish? Kick off the kid who has been on all day with a message to mommy and daddy to either spend time with him or pay up.

 

[Fake]

'Xbox Everywhere, kinda'.

 

[Topher]

It would make sense to give paying customers priority access if the service gets busy, wouldn't it? Why should someone who pays for GPU have to wait for a Fortnite kid to finish? Kick off the kid who has been on all day with a message to mommy and daddy to either spend time with him or pay up.

Not sure I'm understanding this, now that I think about it. There is no "free" tier for Xbox Cloud Gaming. If you are playing Fortnite on xCloud then you must be paying for Game Pass Ultimate, right?

 

[ReBurn]

Not sure I'm understanding this, now that I think about it. There is no "free" tier for Xbox Cloud Gaming. If you are playing Fortnite on xCloud then you must be paying for Game Pass Ultimate, right?

https://www.fortnite.com/mobile/xbox-cloud-gaming?lang=en-US

"You do not need an Xbox Game Pass paid subscription to play Fortnite through Xbox Cloud Gaming."

 

[Topher]

https://www.fortnite.com/mobile/xbox-cloud-gaming?lang=en-US

"You do not need an Xbox Game Pass paid subscription to play Fortnite through Xbox Cloud Gaming."

Ah....ok. I had no idea. Thanks

 

[laynelane]

They aren't spending enough in their eyes.

Don't be surprised if they eventually make a new tier of subscription that will remove any limitations.

Yeah, if this rumour is true, that's what I see happening too. If they could move Fortnite players to a more expensive tier, it would make them a lot of money.

Edit: After seeing ReBurn 's comment about not needing a paid subscription to play Fornite, maybe it would be about simply introducing a subscription to access the cloud for Fornite and other free to play games. I guess it depends on if and how much Fortnite play time is limiting other players' access to XCloud.

 

[ReBurn]

Ah....ok. I had no idea. Thanks

Makes me wonder if whatever Epic was paying to make this possible is coming to an end or isn't covering costs.

 

[GHG]

Yeah, if this rumour is true, that's what I see happening too. If they could move Fortnite players to a more expensive tier, it would make them a lot of money.

Edit: After seeing ReBurn 's comment about not needing a paid subscription to play Fornite, maybe it would be about simply introducing a subscription to access the cloud for Fornite and other free to play games. I guess it depends on if and how much Fortnite play time is limiting other players' access to XCloud.

Yeh it appears quite simple in this case then.

They might make it so that in order to have unlimited access for F2P games via Xcloud then the basic tier of gamepass will be required.

 

[poppabk]

Ah....ok. I had no idea. Thanks

Yeah I was confused to. Don't have ultimate just PC gamepass but yeah if I was paying for it I would want the free players booted if it was stopping me playing.
Now I gotta go see how shit xcloud is though.

 

[Lucifers Beard]

I don't see the issue here. Couldn't someone just sign up for a free Xbox account and then play Fortnite via the cloud without spending anything? If so, I can't see why Xbox wouldn't do this already or just give cloud access to those subbed to Game Pass. They're basically paying for people to play.

 

[Pop]

Hey even Microsoft likes money

Can't get everything for free Xbros

 

[Davevil]

Put to zero.

 

[tr1p1ex]

This also shows they have to charge more for playing any game in the cloud because you're renting the hardware when you play.

 

[Starhowl]

Fucking awesome!

It's time to repurpose bootcamps for Fortnite etc. addicts. They're clearly sick and need professional help, and a camp with professional care would mean the last chance for some of these victims.

 

[adamsapple]

https://www.fortnite.com/mobile/xbox-cloud-gaming?lang=en-US

"You do not need an Xbox Game Pass paid subscription to play Fortnite through Xbox Cloud Gaming."

Huh, legit surprised at this. I thought you need GPU to use Xcloud minimum.

They will probably opt the Geforce Now model and make session limits for the free users, that would make sense.

 

[FIREKNIGHT2029]

“Xbox everywhere” initiative off to a disastrous start.

 

[bigdad2007]

How long before they monetize extending your session?

 

[kruis]

Cloud gaming is really expensive for providers - even if companies like MS and Amazon own their servers, they still essentially have to pay for that capacity. This doesn't surprise me at all.

People somehow think cloud gaming is exactly the same as movie streaming, but it's completely different. Movie streaming is streaming a data files off a hard disk to a user. A single server can handle more than 20,000 simultaneous streams/network connections. A cloud gaming server can handle just a few users, because that server is not just uploading static video files, people are playing video games in real time on that server with close to the same image quality as a gaming PC, PS4, PS5 or Xbox. To handle 20,000 simultaneous gamers MS needs many thousands of cloud gaming servers compared to that single Netflix streaming server.

 

[VolticArchangel]

Nvidia does this too for Geforce Now, free tier limited to 1 hr, and queue is prioritised for paid subs.

Server time costs money, and if you don't spend anything (no microteansactions even) and want to just play the f2p game, buy a console/pc/smart device that game is available on and play natively.

Good move by Xbox and Sony should do the same for PS Now streaming. Prioritize paid Gamepass and PS+ subscription and even game purchases over f2p game time.

 

[xrnzaaas]

That's 'cloud gaming only' future for you right here. Pay by the hour on top of paying for microtransactions (and in some cases for the game itself - like what GFN is doing). Unlimited 4K (or generally high quality) streaming is not sustainable in the long run.

 

[ReyBrujo]

Unlimited 4K (or generally high quality) streaming is not sustainable in the long run.

For the time being, though. They need to solve the latency issue but the infrastructure right now already supports YouTube, Netflix and many other streaming services (and at any time there are more people streaming than gaming, so adding the gamers to the network shouldn't really).

 

[joeygreco1985]

I don't see the issue here. Couldn't someone just sign up for a free Xbox account and then play Fortnite via the cloud without spending anything? If so, I can't see why Xbox wouldn't do this already or just give cloud access to those subbed to Game Pass. They're basically paying for people to play.

That's how it works. My kids have Xbox accounts without Gold or game pass and they can play fortnite on their iPads for free. And I gift them the battle passes from my PC using the epic store. There's no monetization for Microsoft on this and definitely isn't sustainable

 

[Quasicat]

They just need to put Minecraft on this thing. I would imagine that they could make you purchase it and stream it for free and would make a fortune on it. I don’t understand why it’s not already on there since Microsoft owns it.

 

[BlackTron]

The good news is that you can rack up hours of additional free Fortnite time using promotions that give away all of your parents personal info, without even asking because it's free!

 

[ReBurn]

That's how it works. My kids have Xbox accounts without Gold or game pass and they can play fortnite on their iPads for free. And I gift them the battle passes from my PC using the epic store. There's no monetization for Microsoft on this and definitely isn't sustainable

Unless Epic is paying Microsoft for Fortnite access. Epic has paid for crazier stuff.

 

[deriks]

If this happens, it's the worst bullshit ever

Ever

 

[Mattyp]

How long before they monetize extending your session?

Did anyone read the article? These people aren’t paying for anything. If you did pay you can play for as long as you want.

This is for gamers using xcloud for free being limited

 

[Ronin_7]

Cloud servers are insanely expensive to run.

More news at 11.

Cloud gaming was doomed from day 0.

 

[Bojanglez]

Probably realising how many people probably use it to farm xp with AFK games.