Summary
- Microsoft is reportedly planning major Xbox Cloud Gaming improvements.
- The company is said to be working on 4K gaming support, in addition to expanding the catalog of non-Game Pass titles that can be streamed.
- It’s currently unclear when exactly these upgrades are planned to arrive.
Microsoft is reportedly working on some major Xbox Cloud Gaming upgrades, including support for 4K streaming and playing more owned games, among other novelties. Such improvements would help raise the overall value proposition of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, the highest tier of Microsoft’s subscription service and still the only way to access the company’s cloud gaming platform.
Xbox Cloud Gaming was initially teased as Project xCloud at E3 2018. A public preview version of the service launched in 2019, a year before the xCloud name was dropped in favor of the current moniker. Xbox Cloud Gaming became available to all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers in June 2021. The service has been consistently receiving updates expanding its capabilities and performance ever since.
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Even more upgrades are now on the horizon, according to a new report from Windows Central‘s Jez Corden. The insider claims that Microsoft is currently working on bringing support for 4K streaming and higher bitrates to its service. The company is also said to be looking into expanding the catalog of non-Game Pass titles that can be played via Xbox Cloud Gaming. Support for streaming owned games was initially rolled out in December 2024.
Microsoft Reportedly Improving Xbox Cloud Gaming Infrastructure
Additionally, Corden reports that Microsoft is working on improving the Xbox Cloud Gaming infrastructure. To that end, the company is understood to have started allocating more chip supply to the service. Such a move implies that Xbox Cloud Gaming is growing in popularity, prompting Microsoft to upgrade its server farms to keep up with the consumer demand. For context, the streaming service relies on custom Xbox Series X server blades, which run games on Series S profiles—an architectural decision made to improve operational efficiency.
It’s presently unclear when exactly Microsoft plans to introduce these purported upgrades. Based on the company’s track record, it’s likely that all of these improvements will first be rolled out to select users, then gradually expand their reach. Such an approach is all but guaranteed for features like 4K streaming, which is bound to require careful and gradual stress-testing of the Xbox Cloud Gaming infrastructure before it launches globally. 4K gaming itself sounds like a significant upgrade for the service, which has been limited to 1080p/60fps streaming since its Project xCloud days.
Improving Xbox Cloud Gaming is one of the ways in which Microsoft is trying to drive Xbox Game Pass Ultimate growth. And while the company is naturally hoping to sell as many of its highest-tier subscriptions as possible, it’s also rumored to have been considering launching a cloud-only edition of Xbox Game Pass since at least summer 2024.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is the highest tier of Microsoft’s flagship game subscription service that offers over 100 game titles that you can play with a single purchase, making it one of the most outstanding value propositions of the Xbox ecosystem to date.