News: 0179643068

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Microsoft is About To Launch Free Xbox Cloud Gaming With Ads (theverge.com)

(Friday October 03, 2025 @05:22PM (msmash) from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.)


An anonymous reader shares a report from The Verge:

> Microsoft is getting ready to [1]announce an ad-supported version of Xbox Cloud Gaming . Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell The Verge that the software maker has started testing ad-supported games streaming internally, allowing employees to play select titles free without a Game Pass subscription.

>

> I understand that the free ad-supported version of Xbox Cloud Gaming will include the ability to stream some games you own, as well as eligible Free Play Days titles, which let Xbox players try games over a weekend. You'll also be able to stream Xbox Retro Classics games. Sources tell me the internal testing includes around two minutes of preroll ads before a game is available to stream for free through Xbox Cloud Gaming. [...] The ad-supported Xbox Cloud Gaming version will be available on PC, Xbox consoles, handheld devices, and via the web.



[1] https://www.theverge.com/report/791213/xbox-cloud-gaming-free-ad-supported-version


Don't tell me (Score:1)

by Tablizer ( 95088 )

...as soon as one gets good, it will ask for cash.

Re: (Score:2)

by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 )

well each X hours of game play makes the ad's per hour go up.

Now will it be like tv with up 20 minutes of ads per hour?

I'm a fanboy, and they lost me... (Score:2)

by RamenMan ( 7301402 )

I've been on Xbox Live since the service first started- I believe I was in some sort of preview beta. I jumped on GamePass right when it started and now I have 4 separate accounts (3 for my kids, and 1 for me).

They just raised the price for GamePass Ultimate to $30/month, up $10...

$120 per month for gaming is way too much for me. I need to drop all of my accounts, and there is no way I will go to an ad-supported tier. Also, I was planning to upgrade one of my Xboxes to a Series X, but they just raised th

Re: (Score:2)

by Talon0ne ( 10115958 )

Sounds like me. Get a PS5 and the controller alone will make you smile. No bloat in the UI and it never changes. I've had it for a few years now and the UI doesn't constantly change, no ads, its just great.

Brief History Of Linux (#10)
The AnyQuack Computer

One electronic machine, Colossus, was used by the British in World War II
to decode Nazi transmissions. The code-breakers were quite successful in
their mission, except for the tiny detail that nobody knew how to read
German. They had decoded unreadable messages into... unreadable messages.

Two years later in 1945, a group of professors and students at the Univ.
of Pennsylvania were discussing computing theory. An argument ensued, in
which one professor yelled, "Any quack can build an electronic computer!
The real challenge is building one that doesn't crash every five minutes."

One graduate student, J. Presper Eckert, Jr., responded, "I'm any quack!
I'll take you up on that challenge. I'll build a device that can calculate
1,000 digits of pi in one hour... without crashing!" Several professors
laughed; "Such high-speed calculations are beyond our level of technology."

Eckert and his friends did build such a device. As a joke, he called the
machine "AnyQuack", which eventually became ENIAC -- ENIAC's Not Intended
As Crashware, the first known example of a self-referential acronym.