{"id":427268,"date":"2026-01-21T07:46:36","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T07:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/427268\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T07:46:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T07:46:36","slug":"free-ad-supported-xbox-cloud-gaming-looks-to-be-coming-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/427268\/","title":{"rendered":"Free, ad-supported Xbox Cloud Gaming looks to be coming in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\tOne hour chunks, with five hours a month, reportedly&#8230; <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/stevivor.com\/tag\/xcloud\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Free, ad-supported Xbox Cloud Gaming<\/a> looks to be planned for release by Microsoft sometime this year, as mentions of the tier are already finding their way into the Xbox PC app.<\/p>\n<p>As reported by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/news\/864261\/xbox-cloud-gaming-free-ads-testing\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">The Verge\u2019s Tom Warren<\/a>, a new tooltip reading \u201c1 hour of ad-supported playtime per session\u201d has found its way onto the Xbox PC app, on screen as Xbox Cloud Streaming fires itself up. According to Warren, this aligns with his previous reporting; Microsoft internal testing limits the free, ad-supported feature to one hour per session. Warren also reports that Microsoft is planning to let users take advantage of five total hours of this free tier per month.<\/p>\n<p>Warren continues to state that Microsoft\u2019s internal testing will show two minutes of preroll ads before Xbox Cloud Streaming can be accessed; users will be able to stream their owned games, alongside a selection of additional titles.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/stevivor.com\/features\/in-depth\/xbox-game-pass-changed-again-new-expensive-tiers-detailed\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">A change-up to Xbox Game Pass tiers last October<\/a> saw Xbox Cloud Streaming moving from a benefit on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to one on every level, though the highest tier does offer higher bitrates and up to 1440p streaming.<\/p>\n<p>While a release date for this tier hasn\u2019t been announced \u2014 Microsoft is keeping relatively quiet about it for now \u2014 Warren says it\u2019s due \u201cin the coming weeks\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll let know when <a href=\"https:\/\/stevivor.com\/tag\/xcloud\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Xbox Cloud Streaming<\/a> heads to non-Xbox Game Pass subscribers, albeit at the price of preroll ads.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nThis article may contain affiliate links, meaning we could earn a small commission if you click-through and make a purchase. Stevivor is an independent outlet and our journalism is in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One hour chunks, with five hours a month, reportedly&#8230; Free, ad-supported Xbox Cloud Gaming looks to be planned&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6384,64,63,1340,2577,268,105,41745,69748,77430,69747,224269],"class_list":["post-427268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-android","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ios","tag-microsoft","tag-pc","tag-technology","tag-xbox-game-pass","tag-xbox-one","tag-xbox-series-s","tag-xbox-series-x","tag-xcloud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}