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The story
Microsoft’s announced introductory pricing for Xbox Cloud Gaming is time-based: $3.99 for 10 hours, $7.99 for 25 hours, and $11.99 for 50 hours. On 5ch’s “Hardware/Industry” (Geha) board, opinions split over whether this price is high — some argued it’s reasonable given that Xbox hardware itself costs over ¥100,000 in Japan, while others pointed out this is merely an “introductory launch price” and the real rate is bound to go up. The discussion also branched out into which cloud platform (Azure, AWS, or GCP) each company actually uses.
What people said
Xbox Cloud Gaming introductory launch pricing revealed:
-10hrs for $3.99
Xbox hardware costs ¥130,000 in Japan.
Even the low-spec XSS is ¥100,000.
It's not the regular price once the service actually launches 🤭
Yikes, that's rough lol
¥130,000 is for the limited-edition XSX console.
XSX (with disc drive): ¥117,980 incl. tax (about ¥126,000 if converted from the USD price)
XSX (no disc drive): ¥109,980 incl. tax (about ¥118,000 if converted from the USD price)
Both are region-free
The XSS is ¥97,480 incl. tax, so these days you might as well get the diskless XSX instead of an XSS
Both are diskless anyway
Garbage, can't be bolted on after the fact.
Can't even use their precious disc-to-digital feature.
You're usually the type to say disc-to-digital is pointless in Japan since discs barely get released here anyway, and now you're doing a total 180.
Even the disc model doesn't cost ¥130,000.
Which camp are the people bashing the diskless model even in?
Sony
Openly declared they're dropping discs
Microsoft
Even more aggressive about going digital than Sony
Has been selling diskless consoles since the Xbox One era
Nintendo
Disc-free since the Wii U, using only pricey NAND flash
The burden on third parties got so heavy that game-card keys are becoming the norm instead
Though I guess that's just what happens to a dead platform.
Calling it bad when it's only the special intro price?
What's it gonna look like at the regular price then?
It's a service where unlimited play would make the server costs no joke.
If they can't even tolerate that much, the service is finished, that's the point.
I have no idea what you even mean by "finished."
What kind of service are you saying they should be running?
I'm saying it's finished as a business service.
If you don't cut your super-heavy users some slack, it'll never catch on.
Kind of like Rakuten Mobile.
Though I don't think cloud gaming is the one true answer.
Coming from Xbox, the perpetual, hopelessly dead-last also-ran, that's just not convincing.
It's pricing designed just so they can say "usage is too low, we're shutting the service down."
I'd guess it just drops into a Quick Resume state.
There are times it gets choppy — wouldn't it be annoying if your time still ticks down normally even then?
With cloud video-generation services, your credits get used up even when the generation fails.
The moment you say "can't be bolted on after the fact," it's already obvious what's going on.
Didn't they say usage was at 4%?
Isn't it the opposite?
If there are no users, they're the ones getting cut.
If users are increasing, then beef up the servers with that bottomless cloud money.
Though that's not counting electricity bills or controller costs.
If you figure consoles will be a standard $1,000 going forward, that's double, 4,000 hours.
Someone with a regular job putting 4,000 hours into gaming would be pretty rare.
I'd think most ordinary people end up shifting to cloud.
It's like how going to the movies a few times a month is easier than building a full home theater,
or dropping by karaoke whenever the mood strikes is easier than installing your own karaoke room at home.
It literally says the $11.99-for-50-hours is a special price 🥺
It's pretty much guaranteed to get more expensive than that down the line.
They don't use Azure at all.
Nintendo also fully migrated from Azure to GCP a few years back.
That has absolutely nothing to do with cloud gaming.
That's just talk, nothing's actually happening.
The only engineers they're hiring for are AWS and GCP.
It's mostly AWS, with GCP used in some regions.
https://careers.playstation.com/senior-cloud-security-engineer/job/5843097004
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Xbox Cloud Gaming has adopted a pay-per-use system this time, charging based on hours played. As pointed out in the thread, this is an “introductory launch price,” and once the service is fully up and running, it could switch to a regular rate that’s higher. Since cloud streaming comes with ongoing server maintenance costs, the pricing appears to have been set up separately from the flat monthly Xbox Game Pass Ultimate fee. Also, since Xbox hardware itself costs over ¥100,000 in Japan, it may be premature to simply call the cloud pricing “expensive” based on the number alone — it also offers a way to play without buying a console at all. As for which cloud platform powers PlayStation’s streaming, guesses in the thread were split, but job listings that came up suggest AWS and GCP carry the bulk of the load, so the assumption that it’s Azure alone isn’t necessarily accurate.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry [Geha]) thread “[Sad News] Xbox Cloud Pricing Confirmed Insanely Expensive lol -10hrs for $3.99 -25hrs for $7.99 -50hrs for $11.99 lol.”
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