Xbox imposes harsh new time limits for Game Pass game streaming
Xbox imposes harsh new time limits for Game Pass game streaming
Xbox 对 Game Pass 云游戏服务实施严苛的新时长限制
In 2020, Microsoft announced that Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions would include unlimited access to its new Xbox Cloud Gaming service (then still known as Project xCloud). Now, that kind of streaming buffet service is coming to an end, as Microsoft announced strict new limits on how much streaming is included in its various Game Pass subscriptions.
2020 年，微软宣布 Game Pass Ultimate 订阅将包含对其全新 Xbox 云游戏服务（当时仍被称为 Project xCloud）的无限访问权限。如今，这种“自助餐式”的流媒体服务即将终结，因为微软宣布对其各项 Game Pass 订阅中包含的云游戏时长实施严格的新限制。
Starting in November, Game Pass subscriptions will include the following monthly limits on game streaming time:
- Game Pass Ultimate ($23/month): 15 hours
- Game Pass Premium ($15/month): 10 hours
- Game Pass Essential ($10/month): 5 hours
从 11 月开始，Game Pass 订阅将包含以下每月云游戏时长限制：
- Game Pass Ultimate（每月 23 美元）：15 小时
- Game Pass Premium（每月 15 美元）：10 小时
- Game Pass Essential（每月 10 美元）：5 小时
Subscribers who use up their monthly streaming allotment will be able to buy additional time, Microsoft said, without sharing specific pricing or availability for that streaming time. Access to downloadable versions of games included in a Game Pass subscription remains unaffected.
微软表示，用尽每月云游戏额度的订阅用户将能够购买额外时长，但并未透露这些额外时长的具体定价或购买渠道。Game Pass 订阅中包含的可下载游戏版本访问权限不受影响。
Players who don’t subscribe to Game Pass will also be able to purchase timed access to streaming versions of “eligible games they own on supported devices,” Microsoft said. In June, Microsoft also began testing a free “stream with ads” option for players to access their cloud libraries at no additional cost.
微软表示，非 Game Pass 订阅用户也将能够购买“在支持设备上拥有的符合条件游戏”的云游戏限时访问权限。今年 6 月，微软还开始测试一种免费的“带广告流媒体”选项，让玩家无需额外付费即可访问其云游戏库。
Sony currently offers streamable versions of select PlayStation games—without time limits—only to subscribers of its top-tier, $20 per month PlayStation Plus Premium plan. Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming PC games service currently limits the length of a user’s individual play sessions, ranging from one-hour sessions on the free ad-supported tier to eight-hour sessions on the $20 per month Ultimate tier. GeForce Now users can start as many sessions as they want in a day, however, and can purchase single-day passes for limited-time streaming access to over 2,000 streamable titles.
索尼目前仅向其每月 20 美元的顶级 PlayStation Plus Premium 会员提供部分 PlayStation 游戏的流媒体版本，且没有时长限制。Nvidia 的 GeForce Now 云游戏服务目前限制了用户单次游戏会话的时长，从免费广告版的一小时会话到每月 20 美元的 Ultimate 版八小时会话不等。不过，GeForce Now 用户每天可以开启任意次数的会话，并可以购买单日通行证，以获得对 2000 多款可流媒体游戏的限时访问权限。
Who pays?
谁会买单？
While Microsoft acknowledges that its new streaming limits will result in a “higher cost” for some customers, the company says the change will only impact “4% of Game Pass subscribers.” That ratio suggests that about 1.2 million of the estimated 30 million Xbox Game Pass subscribers are currently using streaming often enough to require additional payments under the new structure.
虽然微软承认新的流媒体限制会导致部分客户“成本增加”，但该公司表示，这一变化只会影响“4% 的 Game Pass 订阅用户”。这一比例意味着，在约 3000 万 Xbox Game Pass 订阅用户中，大约有 120 万人目前的云游戏使用频率高到需要在新架构下支付额外费用。
What’s unclear is just how many Game Pass subscribers currently make use of game streaming at all. In 2022, Microsoft was quick to trumpet when its streaming service had reached its first 10 million and 20 million user milestones—numbers that surely included many who tried the service and never came back. Last year, Microsoft shared that Xbox Cloud Gaming usage was up 45 percent from the year before and said that it had streamed 500 million hours of games in the 2025 fiscal year alone.
目前尚不清楚到底有多少 Game Pass 订阅用户真正使用了云游戏服务。2022 年，当其流媒体服务达到 1000 万和 2000 万用户里程碑时，微软曾大肆宣传——这些数字无疑包含了许多尝试过该服务后便不再使用的人。去年，微软透露 Xbox 云游戏的使用量比前一年增长了 45%，并表示仅在 2025 财年就流式传输了 5 亿小时的游戏。
Taken together, those numbers suggest a relatively small minority of Game Pass subscribers are responsible for the vast majority of streaming play time on Microsoft’s service. Microsoft also hints at this in today’s announcement, writing that “we’re introducing this model because the cost of providing cloud gaming grows as more people use it and play for longer. Moving to monthly limits allows us to keep offering the service while continuing to invest in its reliability and performance.”
综合来看，这些数据表明，极少数的 Game Pass 订阅用户贡献了微软服务中绝大部分的云游戏时长。微软在今天的公告中也暗示了这一点，写道：“我们引入这种模式是因为随着使用人数增加和游戏时长延长，提供云游戏的成本也在增长。转向每月限额模式使我们能够在继续投资于服务可靠性和性能的同时，维持该服务的运营。”
Unlike linear video streaming services—which have to worry primarily about increased bandwidth costs as usage increases—Microsoft also has to devote significant computing resources to running cloud-based games on remote servers. Those costs have undoubtedly increased of late as the price of RAM and storage continues to skyrocket this year.
与线性视频流媒体服务（主要担心随着使用量增加而带来的带宽成本上升）不同，微软还必须投入大量的计算资源在远程服务器上运行云游戏。随着今年内存和存储价格的持续飙升，这些成本无疑在近期有所增加。
Today’s announcement comes over five years after Xbox rolled out a cloud-focused, streaming-centric vision of its future, where a critical mass of gamers would supposedly flock to access Xbox games via web browser, smart TV, streaming stick, or dedicated “streaming devices” rather than buying expensive hardware to run games locally. Since that announcement, Google has killed off its ambitious Stadia game streaming project, and Amazon has stopped selling new games and streaming old purchases via its Luna platform.
今天的公告距离 Xbox 推出以云端为核心、以流媒体为中心的未来愿景已经过去了五年多。当时，微软设想会有大量玩家涌向通过网页浏览器、智能电视、流媒体棒或专用“流媒体设备”来访问 Xbox 游戏，而不是购买昂贵的硬件在本地运行游戏。自那次公告以来，谷歌已经关闭了其雄心勃勃的 Stadia 云游戏项目，亚马逊也已停止通过其 Luna 平台销售新游戏并流式传输旧购买内容。
In a 2023 “Finding of Fact” document filed during Microsoft’s trial with the FTC, Microsoft said cloud gaming “makes up only a tiny fraction of the billions of hours of gameplay each year and has never achieved consumer demand beyond its current niche.” In June, cloud gaming barely factored into the “hard truths” new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma addressed in announcing a “hard reset” of Microsoft’s entire gaming business.
在微软与美国联邦贸易委员会（FTC）的审判期间提交的一份 2023 年“事实认定”文件中，微软曾表示，云游戏“仅占每年数十亿小时游戏时间中的极小一部分，且从未实现超出当前利基市场的消费者需求。”今年 6 月，在 Xbox 新任首席执行官 Asha Sharma 宣布对微软整个游戏业务进行“彻底重置”时，云游戏几乎没有出现在她所提到的“严酷事实”中。