Up until now, anyone who subscribed to Game Pass was able to access unlimited streaming, albeit with a couple of caveats: the higher the tier, the better the streaming quality and the more games you could stream. If you were on Game Pass Essential, you had lowest priority and quality and the smallest game catalogue, but you could still stream as much as you wanted. But today, that all changed.
Xbox is introducing monthly streaming caps in Novemeber across all of its tiers. They made the announcement over on the Xbox Wire, citing the rising cost of streaming and the fact that apparently only 4% of users will apparently be effected by the changes.
From November 2026, the monthly allowances will be:
- Game Pass Ultimate: 15 hours
- Game Pass Premium: 10 hours
- Game Pass Essential: 5 hours
“We recognize that introducing limits is a meaningful change, particularly for players who regularly spend more time gaming through the cloud. We expect this upcoming change to impact 4% of Game Pass subscribers,” says Xbox.
It’s important to note that while Xbox says this will only effect 4% of users, that doesn’t mean only 4% of Game Pass actually stream games. It probably also accounts for people who stream, but don’t typically stream games for more than a few hours a month, thus the cap wouldn’t bother them.
According to Xbox, if you do want to stream more, you can purchase additional streaming hours. They have not announced pricing, though, so your guess is as good as mine. And mine’s shite.
This ability to purchase streaming hours also ties into another change announced by Xbox: as of November, you can stream games without a Game Pass subscription by purchasing streaming hours. Again, at an undisclosed price. They say this feauture will be especially useful for people in markets where consoles are “less available or affordable.”