Xbox Says Cloud Gaming Is Up 45% With Game Pass & Console Users In 2025

I mean, 45% increase is good, but without actual numbers to back it up, it's pretty meaningless. After all, if it was as low as 100 people doing it last year, and it's now 145, would that be considered good...?

Not surprising , I have a good connection and it runs great.

I'm not surprised. Since last year, the service has improved a lot, especially in terms of image quality and stability.

Even so, there is still a lot of work to be done before cloud gaming can compare to the quality offered by local gaming.

45% compared to what? Microsoft loves word salad. I guess when you have nothing else trending up, you have to come up with something.

I've increased my usage of cloud gaming solely to get Microsoft Rewards points which I'm sure a lot of us do. I've had so-so experiences with it because I play a lot of action titles that demand high frame rate and minimal lag so def not for me vs downloaded on the console.

@themightyant dude I think the best streaming service was Stadia. They had excellent infrastructure and they were running Cyberpunk better on cloud than on downloads on consoles. Shame MSFT or others didn't buy up all that great infrastructure. Google wasn't made to survive in the gaming industry. Otherwise yeah, Microsoft Cloud isn't good for my style of games which I agree with your points full heartedly on.

The input lag is still ridiculous. I’ve got high speed fiber and I still can’t play an FPS, fighting game or platformer properly because of the latency. It’s straight-up not reactive enough for a huge number of players (some people seem to be okay with it though… probably those already used to high input lag tv I guess).

If this is what Microsoft is trying to sell as their next main Xbox experience… good luck with that…

Streaming is up because a lot of people are streaming all those mediocre gamepass games without wanting to install them. Play for 10 min and try another.

@Fiendish-Beaver streaming games is becoming more and more popular now because it’s getting a lot better and I think the push for handhelds is helping as well.

If thats 45% of the current userbase it means nothing as its zero growth. Words are the only thing MS are able to produce more of at the minute because its a constant stream of drivel from their execs.

@Fiendish-Beaver "100 people" seriously ? That’s your best example, and we both know it’s false — always bad faith and negativity. We’re talking about several millions of players, and +45% is huge no matter what you say. The numbers are easy to find, just look at sites like Statista or others to see how many players use cloud gaming — it’s not 100 people… unbelievable what one has to read!

@fatpunkslim I think you are missing his point.

Also, it isnt +45% in subscribers going up. Its just the percentage of subscribers using streaming. This could be for 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days, who knows.

@Fiendish-Beaver's point is that without the detail, it means nothing. And hes right.

For goodness sake, @fatpunkslim, I wasn't suggesting it was as low as 100 people, and anyone with an ounce of common sense would have realised that.

My point was that without numbers to back up how many the starting point was then saying it has increased by 45% is meaningless. Thus, if the starting figure is 100 people, then 145 is not that good.

As is always the case, you are so desperate to defend Microsoft that you leap in without giving any thought to what has been said.

I know full well that there are more than 100 people using Cloud, and I was never for one moment suggesting that what I was saying was a 'fact'. I was using it for illustrative preposes only...

I absolutely agree, @ILuvGames. I think what I was getting at has been completely misinterpreted. I was saying that without the starting figure, then saying it was up by 45% is pretty meaningless.

I think much of that increase will be down to the release of the Xbox Ally, but I also think that having detail would be good. I mean, if 100,000,000 people have used it last year, and that is now 145,000,000 then that's great, but even more useful than knowing that would be how much time it has been used too. If everyone has used it for just 1 minute, then that's not great, but if they have all used it non-stop for 100 days, then that's impressive!

You get my point, the devil is in the detail, and it is the lack of detail that always leaves us guessing, and often leads us to ask why they are not tell us...

I have some use for console streaming but it doesn't run as well as it should, and it seems to be left to languish as MS abandons Xbox and focuses on cloud etc.

@Fiendish-Beaver I understand perfectly, thank you. My point is about your bad faith, because you deliberately take an example that makes no sense. Why talk about 100 people, if not to try to minimize this growth? We both know very well that we’re talking about several millions already using cloud gaming. Even if we don’t know the exact number, starting from several millions, +45% is necessarily a huge increase, and so your example makes no sense. That’s what I mean.

It's not bad faith at all, @fatpunkslim, and I fail to see how my comment could possibly be seen as such. My point remains that without knowing the starting figure, we don't know what the actual figure is.

It's not negativity either, it's pointing out that Microsoft are always, but always, utterly vague with their news. Give us specifics, that's all I am saying.

We also could do with knowing what has caused that spike. Is it the Xbox Ally's arrival that has caused it? What devices has seen that spike? If the rise is 45%, does that also mean that the amount of time spent on Cloud has also increased by 45%, or is it more, or is it less? How long are people actually spending on Cloud? If everyone is trying a game on Game Pass via Cloud for 10 minutes, then that's less important than someone accumulating 10 days worth of play via Cloud.

It's not intended as negativity, it's pointing out that without detail the number is basically meaningless because we know nothing more. If tell me that you've been given a 45% pay rise, it tells me absolutely nothing unless I know what you were earning in the first place! That is the point I am making, yet for some reason you always leap to the the defence of Microsoft, without saying to yourself, 'you know what, he's got a point! 45% of what? How many is that now? How long are they playing for? What has bought about that increase? etc.'

As I say, the devil is in the detail, and I would suggest that if a Government were to make such a claim you would say hang on, give me more information. So what should Microsoft get a pass...?

@Fiendish-Beaver it’s pretty negative to set a low figure as an example especially when you know that figure is far off from the truth. And I’m not saying that to be mean, I know you are a good guy but that comment can come off a bit negative. It would be nice to get the actual figures just to see how much streaming has grown even to see how well PS is doing now that the portal has cloud streaming now. I’m more interested in how large it has grown overall rather than just Xbox.

I was not attempting to be negative, @ILuvGames, but I was making the point that without knowing what the actual starting figure was, or what it now stands out, saying it's gone up by a certain percentage is meaningless, hence the use of 100 to highlight that it could mean virtually nothing.

If I had said it was on 100,000,000 million to start with, and then said it is now 145,000,000 then similarly it would be seen as an astoundingly impressive increase.

Without the detail though, the figure is worthless.

If an election was held, and a party formed the Government having gained the largest share, then that sound great. However, if that largest share amounted to just 20% of the vote, with the other parties having amassed 80% of the vote between them, then suddenly that party getting elected on just 20% seems pretty poor.

That is the point I was trying to make, but seems to be lost on people. I guess it could be construed as negative if it seen as questioning the results, but truthfully, I'm just pointing out that Microsoft are doing what they always do, and give us really vague, often meaningless, cherry-picked stats. 45% is impressive, but why not tell us the overall number then? Why not tell us how it was achieved, where, for how long Cloud is being used, a breakdown of devices, and if a particular game was a source of much of that time, tell us what it was. There is so much detail that we could be told, but as is always the case, Microsoft seem to obfuscate, and I find it quite frustrating because believe it or not, I'm one of their biggest proponents...

@Fiendish-Beaver it’s just more how the comment is structured. Generally people will low ball things they don’t like to make it seem more negative than it really is. This is also done in the reverse. But a simple search has the number at 22 million in 2022 which surely that has grown but even going off that number a 45% increase would be a 9 million increase which is good growth based on 3 year old data.

Totally understand what you are saying, @ILuvGames, but the point I was making was that would we celebrating just 45 more people? Obviously not, but if we are not told actual figures, then who knows how many more there are now using Cloud? What Microsoft should have done is shout loudly the 45% increased usage, whilst giving us the actual number too. Personally I feel it more important to tell us how long people are using it for too. After all, if you try Cloud gaming for 20 minutes and find it useless, you may not return to it for quite a while. Similarly, if it has gone to 30 or 40 million, just tell us. Also, has it coincided with the launch of the Xbox Ally, or has the increase been seen across PC and Game Pass, etc.. Just saying 45% is not enough. We should not need to search around to find meaning in the figure. Give us the details. That way we can celebrate it properly, rather than wonder why Microsoft are not telling us everything, or having to make are own, ill-informed, conclusions...