Video gamers may begin to more frequently experience the feeling of frantically shoving quarters into an arcade machine to extend playtime.<\/p>\n
Microsoft-owned Xbox has launched a pay-as-you-go feature that has angered some users and is part of a larger trend of video game fans paying more for titles they do not own.<\/p>\n
That comes as the Xbox division is facing a widespread business reset<\/a> as it works to course correct from slumping revenue as a result of plummeting hardware sales and Game Pass subscription losses. The division has slashed 20% of its workforce, about 3,200 roles, and has begun selling once-exclusive titles like Halo across competing gaming platforms to boost sales.<\/p>\n Xbox launched Cloud Gaming in 2020 as a cheaper alternative to physical games, arguing that effectively renting a title would provide the opportunity to play a game without the financial commitment of purchasing a console and disk. <\/p>\n A Game Pass subscription, which began as an online service to download games to your console, initially gave users free and unlimited access to Cloud Gaming.<\/p>\n Subscribers gained the ability to stream a library of Xbox games without requiring individual purchases or downloads.<\/p>\n But in September, the company changed how customers were able to access Cloud Gaming. Instead of the Game Pass monthly subscription granting unlimited access to the library, gameplay hours were capped. <\/p>\n Last week, Xbox implemented additional changes. Once subscribers run out of playable hours of cloud gaming, they can use a new service called Cloud Playtime<\/a> to buy more time.<\/p>\n Game Pass subscribers already now pay between $10 and $23 per month for five to 15 hours of cloud gaming, while playing games downloaded to one\u2019s console remains unlimited. With Cloud Playtime, 10 additional monthly hours of cloud gaming will cost $4, 25 hours costs $8, and 50 hours costs $12.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gamers have criticized Xbox\u2019s new pay-as-you-go system<\/a>, with YouTuber Yong Yea\u00a0saying that as gamers have to pay more fees to stream titles, the affordability argument for cloud gaming becomes moot. Not only are users paying more to access games on the cloud, but they don\u2019t even have the benefit of owning the game itself, as they would if they had bought the physical console and game.<\/p>\n Xbox did not immediately respond to Fortune\u2018s request for comment about gamers\u2019 concerns about the new payment system.<\/p>\n Sony Playstation\u2019s game ownership disputes<\/p>\n As more gaming companies rely on subscription systems, video game fans are finding there are limitations to the convenience of renting or downloading titles. <\/p>\n In June, four Sony customers filed a class action lawsuit<\/a> in California\u2019s Northern District Court, alleging Sony did not properly disclose that paying for a downloadable Playstation game did not give them permanent ownership or access to it. According to the complaint, Sony\u2019s disclosure violated a 2024 California law<\/a> that requires a video game company to provide a warning that \u201cstates in plain language that \u2018buying\u2019 or \u2018purchasing\u2019 the digital good is a license.\u201d<\/p>\n Sony responded in a motion<\/a> to dismiss that lawsuit that a customer could not reasonably assume they owned exclusive rights to a digital game because multiple users are able to purchase the same game just moments apart, meaning no one could buy the same \u201ccopy\u201d of a game. The lawsuit is ongoing.<\/p>\n GameStop<\/a> customer Jake Weber sued the gaming store<\/a> in January, arguing in an ongoing lawsuit that it did not include information on its website about customers purchasing just a license for Pok\u00e9mon Legends: Arceus, not the actual game.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, consumers are fed up with the subscription economy: a CivicScience survey<\/a> found 37% of Gen Zers reported cancelling a subscription to at least one streaming service because of \u201csubscription fatigue,\u201d a feeling another 87% said they experienced.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the digital-centric video game strategy is likely to continue as console companies find they can produce and distribute titles more cheaply. Sony announced earlier this year it would no longer ship new Playstation 5 games<\/a> on discs beginning in 2028.<\/p>\n This era of digital games is a departure from a strategy that video game companies employed more than a decade ago, touting the value of owning physical media, which was praised by video game fans<\/a>. In 2013, in response to Microsoft restricting the trade of pre-owned games and requiring internet access to play new titles (a move is swiftly reversed<\/a>), Playstation uploaded a viral video of former executives Shuhei Yoshida and Adam Boyes passing a game box to each other.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is how you share your games on PS4,\u201d Yoshida said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Video gamers may begin to more frequently experience the feeling of frantically shoving quarters into an arcade machine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,2057,874,63,324261,61,2881],"class_list":["post-947156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cloud","tag-gaming","tag-microsoft","tag-microsoft-xbox","tag-technology","tag-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}