Microsoft currently offers free access to Fortnite on its Xbox Cloud Gaming service (xCloud), but there are signs the company may offer free game streaming in exchange for ads. Microsoft Gaming CFO Tim Stuart hinted at this prospect in a Wells Fargo TMT Summit interview late last month, spotted by TweakTown.
“The vision I like to talk about is we have xCloud game streaming, so you can subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate and you can stream hundreds of games to really any endpoint that has a browser experience,” explained Stuart. “For models like Africa, or India, Southeast Asia, maybe places that aren’t console-first, you can say, ‘hey, do you want to watch 30 seconds of an ad and then get two hours of game streaming?’”
Stuart’s spitballing makes it clear this is something that Microsoft has been looking at for certain regions, with Xbox Cloud Gaming having expanded to new markets throughout 2022. An ad-supported version of Xbox Cloud Gaming could work well in markets where phone ownership is much higher than traditional consoles or gaming PCs.
Microsoft has experimented with Xbox Cloud Gaming in the past, though. You can play Fortnite for free on the service, with just a Microsoft Account. This free access hasn’t expanded to other games just yet though. It has been successful at marketing cloud gaming, as Microsoft revealed last year that more than 20 million people have streamed games using Xbox Cloud Gaming, boosted by the Fortnite addition.
