Microsoft has confirmed Xbox Cloud Gaming is now available on the Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and Xbox One consoles, enabling Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to play select games without a download.
Xbox Cloud gaming previously rolled out to smartphones and web browsers, allowing those subscribed to Game Pass Ultimate to access AAA games despite your hardware’s limited GPU power.
Microsoft is now rolling enabling support for consoles, and while the Xbox hardware is obviously already capable of playing AAA games, you instead get the benefit of playing games without the need to install it first, saving precious storage space.
Of course, by using the Xbox Cloud service, performance will be dependent on an fast internet connection. The performance will also be limited to a 1080p resolution up to 60fps. This means supported titles will see better visuals when running natively on a Series S or Series X, so there is still an incentive to download the game onto your hard drive instead.
Still, the idea of being able to start playing a game straight away to see if it’s worthy of a download is very appealing. Microsoft has also revealed this will allow the Xbox One to run games that were previously exclusive to next-gen platforms, such as Recompile, The Medium, and The Riftbreaker.
Of course, not every Game Pass game will support cloud gaming, so it’s worth looking out for the Cloud Gaming icon on Game Pass to see which titles are compatible.
Cloud Gaming on Xbox consoles will be available in 25 regions from today, including the UK and USA, with a Brazil launch ‘coming soon’.
This announcement follows a week of big reveals for Xbox, as the company also launched Halo Infinite multiplayer three weeks early while also adding an additional 76 classic games to the Game Pass library.
