Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gamers will be able to play anywhere with xCloud add-on

Don Reisinger
By

Xbox chief Phil Spencer unveiled plans to combine Game Pass and Project xCloud for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members.

The feature, which will launch in September, will allow Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members who pay $15 a month for the Game Pass-Xbox Live Gold bundle to play Xbox Game Pass titles on their phones or tablets in addition to their consoles. It’ll be available at no additional cost.

Recommended Videos

“Cloud gaming in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate means your games are no longer locked to the living room,” Spencer wrote. “And just like you do with the popular movie and music streaming services, when cloud gaming launches into Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, you can continue your game wherever you left off on any of your devices.”

Related

Spencer also promised to clean up Xbox Live and let players take their games wherever they go. Although he didn’t provide too many details on Microsoft’s plan, Spencer said the company will tackle the ongoing problem of harassment on Xbox Live.

Microsoft will deploy “new technology to reduce hate speech and toxicity” across Xbox Live and make the service “safe, accessible, and welcoming” by improving its content policing, Spencer said in his post on Thursday. He added that Microsoft is “empowering creators of diverse backgrounds to develop new stories” and will push for “authentic and respectful representation in games.”

His comments come as the game industry reels from a growing number of harassment, racism, and sexual abuse complaints. Microsoft found itself in the midst of that controversy in May, when former employee Milan Lee recounted racism he experienced at Microsoft’s game-streaming service Mixer. “Racism will not be tolerated on our teams or on our services,” Spencer said in response to Lee’s comments. The two also spoke privately about Lee’s experience.

Spencer’s post also made several promises to players, including an expectation that games will “look and play best on Xbox Series X.” His comments appear to respond to concerned players questioning whether Xbox Series X games will look as good as they could when developers are also making Xbox One versions. Developers, they fear, will need to ensure their games work on older hardware, leaving an Xbox Series X game to look duller than PlayStation 5 alternatives.

Any new Microsoft Game Studios titles, including the upcoming Halo Infinite, will be developed for both the Xbox Series X and Xbox One for the next two years, Spencer said, seemingly casting aside those fears. All Xbox One accessories will also work on Xbox Series X and players can expect games from all four Xbox generations to be playable on the console.

“The future of gaming has never been more exciting and limitless,” Spencer said. “It’s a future you’ll explore on your terms, not constrained by restrictive policies.”

Microsoft will share more about Xbox Series X and its games at its Xbox Games Showcase on July 23. Spencer promised a “first look” at Halo Infinite‘s campaign at the show.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Don Reisinger
Don Reisinger
Don Reisinger is a freelance technology, video game, and entertainment journalist. He has been writing about the world of…
Is Starfield on Xbox One?
Key art for Starfield

Starfield is one of the biggest games of the year and space exploration has never looked so good (especially on a new PC with the correct settings tweaked). Released natively for PC and Xbox Series X, a lot of gamers are going to be left out of Bethesda's latest RPG — it'll never be released on PlayStation 5 or Nintendo Switch. But there's good news if you're still playing on a last-gen Xbox One. While Starfield isn't being released on the older console directly, there's still a way to play on Xbox One.

There are also a few other ways to play Startfield without an Xbox at all.
How to play Satrfield on Xbox One

Read more
You don’t need an Xbox Series X to play Starfield. Here’s how
Key art for Starfield

Starfield is the highest-profile Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S game since Halo Infinite, but the game isn't locked to those two consoles. Thanks to cloud gaming and Microsoft's more open-ended mentality of making its games available on a wide variety of platforms, you don't have to own one of Microsoft's current-gen systems or have the Xbox app installed on your PC.
No, it's not on PS5 or Nintendo Switch, but if you want to play Starfield while it's at the center of the video game industry zeitgeist, here are some places where it's playable other than the Xbox Series X, Xbox Series X, and Xbox PC app.
Steam

The most obvious choice if you want to play Starfield elsewhere is to pick it up on Steam. While Microsoft does have a proprietary PC launcher of its own, Microsoft now consistently releases its own games through Valve's launcher. Bethesda joined Xbox Game Studios in 2021 and has a long history of making its games available on Steam as well, so it's not too surprising that Starfield is available on the platform.
Starfield already proving quite popular on the platform too, having peaked at 266,000 concurrent players, according to SteamDB at the time I'm writing this. If you're looking for a way to play Starfield natively on the hardware you own without using a Microsoft platform or service, this is your best option. It'll run on Steam Deck too, although that's not the only way to experience Starfield on the go.
Xbox Game Pass app on Android

Read more
All cross-platform games (PS5, Xbox Series X, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC)
Two squads of heroes clash in an Overwatch 2 trailer.

Cross-platform support is becoming more important in the world of video games. Multiplayer hits like Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 and Fortnite have pushed crossplay into the limelight, and now most AAA multiplayer games release with at least partial cross-platform support. Finding every cross-platform game is no easy feat, though, so we did the hard work to bring you a comprehensive list of games that support crossplay.

Unfortunately, there aren't any rules when it comes to crossplay, so each game handles the feature a little differently. To make matters more confusing, certain backward-compatible games on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X still support crossplay on the most recent hardware, even if there isn't an official release for that hardware.

Read more