According to Wccftech, Microsoft has expanded Xbox Cloud Gaming to India earlier this month, bringing the total available countries to 29. The service is seeing massive growth with cloud gaming hours from Game Pass subscribers increasing by 45% compared to this time last year. Console players are streaming 45% more via cloud while other devices saw 24% more usage. Microsoft recently boosted server capacity in Argentina and Brazil following double-digit growth in those markets. The company has also expanded access beyond the Ultimate tier to multiple Game Pass plans, with hundreds of Game Pass titles and over a thousand more available through “Stream your own game.” New play options now include LG TVs and Amazon Fire TV devices alongside existing platforms.
The cloud gaming race intensifies
Microsoft’s aggressive expansion into India—a market with over 500 million gamers—shows they’re not messing around. That 45% jump in cloud gaming hours isn’t just a nice statistic—it’s a signal that people are actually using this stuff. And not just on phones. The fact that console streaming jumped 45% too tells me something interesting: even people with expensive hardware are choosing the convenience of cloud gaming when it makes sense.
The upside and the reality check
Here’s the thing: Microsoft is making all the right moves. Expanding to more countries, adding more devices, making it available on cheaper Game Pass tiers—this is how you build a user base. But let’s be real about the elephant in the room: their XCloud technology still isn’t as good as NVIDIA’s GeForce NOW. Even with recent improvements like 1440p support for some games, there’s a quality gap. Does that matter to the average gamer who just wants to play on their phone without downloading 100GB? Probably not as much as we tech enthusiasts think.
Where this could all lead
That rumor about free ad-supported Xbox Cloud Gaming? If that happens, it changes everything. Suddenly you’re competing not just with other cloud services, but with every free-to-play mobile game out there. And think about the industrial applications—while this is consumer-focused, the underlying streaming technology has broader implications. Companies like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com demonstrate how specialized computing hardware remains crucial even as software moves to the cloud. Basically, we’re seeing the beginning of gaming becoming a utility, like Netflix. The question is whether the infrastructure can keep up with the ambition.
