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The new Xbox Game Pass feature would be a big win for all subscribers

The new Xbox Game Pass feature would be a big win for all subscribers

Xbox Game Pass recently announced a new feature for Ultimate members that will change the way some games are streamed. The new feature is available now and other players will be able to access it in the new year. It could be crucial for a lot of people, especially given other issues worrying gamers about the current state of console gaming.




There are currently a whole range of different subscription tiers for Xbox Game Pass, and although the new feature will be added to everyone soon, only the top tier Ultimate subscribers currently have access to it. However, anyone who is an Xbox Insider with Alpha Skip-Ahead or Alpha Rings can also access this feature. This feature is called “Stream Your Own Game” and is available to the above players in almost 28 different countries.

Game Pass is testing a new way to stream games

Stream games not included in Game Pass


Previously, players could only use or access Cloud Streaming if it was a Game Pass game and they were Game Pass subscribers. Cloud streaming made it possible to play supported Game Pass games from anywhere with a good internet connectioneither directly on a console, on a computer or on a phone or tablet via the website. This was a pretty good feature in itself, but it’s supposed to get even better.

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This new “Stream your own game” feature. allows players to stream any supported game they own that is not part of the Game Pass catalog. In November it was available to Ultimate members and Insiders on their phones and PCs, but now it’s also available on consoles. This list of supported games is already quite large, and more will be added as more games gain support for cloud gaming.


There are now titles like Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Baldur’s Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars Outlaws, And The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt available. While this is currently limited to certain people, everyone will be able to use this feature sometime in 2025.

Why it’s great to stop streaming games on Game Pass

More options for players with limited space

Image from “Indiana Jones and the Great Circle” with Indy in a suit.

The ability to stream games on Xbox that aren’t exclusive to Game Pass is huge and should be well received. While players still need to pay attention to their internet connection, the fact that they don’t necessarily have to download a huge game file for every game they want to play is a big problem. This is particularly true of the current trend Indiana Jones and the Big Circle And STALKERS 2, Both had game files of at least 130 GB at launch.


Console memory gets used up very quickly and the ability to only have a few games playable at a time is pretty daunting. Many players may want to jump from game to game or have the ability to jump into a new game without sacrificing their other games.

If cloud gaming is able to allow people to stream these big games without a lot of errors, that would be a win for everyone and a good way to combat the increase in game file sizes. Additionally, for those who tried a game while it was still on Game Pass and want to continue playing it, the ability to do so via streaming keeps the console storage where it was rather than reorganizing it to have to.

When will the new Game Pass feature become official?

When will it be available to everyone?

Shocked character with Xbox Game Pass
Custom image by Katarina Cimbaljevic


The idea is for Everyone should have access to this feature sometime in 2025but when exactly it will be available is open to speculation. Most likely the current situation is to test whether the system can handle it and ensure that errors are kept to a minimum. Cloud streaming on Game Pass games can be laggy in the past, so this could be part of what they’re testing.

However, they probably already have a fair amount of data on it, and considering it also made the jump from phone/PC to console-only in such a short space of time, that suggests that’s likely to happen soon. If all goes well, the feature will likely continue to be rolled out gradually, perhaps first to all Game Pass subscribers and Insiders and then to everyone else.

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Hopefully, if things continue as they are, this progress will happen fairly quickly. As the holidays approach, it’s very likely that they’ll be able to get a lot of test data fairly quickly and move forward. Optimistic, Perhaps everyone will have access to the feature by the end of the first quarter of 2025. What would be less optimistic would be that it could be summer.

No one at Microsoft knows for sure, but it’s evolved quickly and many games already have a history with streaming, if they ever existed Game pass in the past. Anyway, the future of this particular feature on Xbox looks pretty bright at the moment.

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