Microsoft already shows you ads whenever you log into the Xbox Series X, but it seems like it’s exploring an ad-supported way to essentially rent out games on Xbox consoles.
Microsoft filed a patent called ‘contextually aware management of interactive software application access,’ which describes a process of pausing your game at the operating system level and presenting ‘audiovisual promoted content’ (in other words, an ad), which would then grant you a credit once it’s over. That credit, at least in the way it’s presented in the patent documentation, would grant you access to the game for a limited amount of time, from 15 minutes to an hour.
It’s important to keep in mind that there’s no way to tell whether or not the technology presented in this patent will ever get implemented. But, considering the troubles Xbox Game Pass has been dealing with lately, it’s not that bizarre to imagine an ad-supported tier where you have to watch an ad every 15 minutes to keep playing your game.
Keep in mind that Microsoft also recently limited playtime on Xbox Cloud Gaming to just 15 hours a month with Game Pass Ultimate. That’s not a lot of time to play games, and anyone relying on cloud streaming, now that RAM prices have gone through the roof, could be stuck dealing with the ads just to play games for more than 30 minutes a day.
Hopefully, if this patent does materialize into something real, it’ll be a way to let people play for free, rather than being snuck into games that people paid full price for. However, even Disney+ looks like it’s going to work ads into its most expensive subscription plan, so it’s not off the table for Microsoft to do the same.
After all, this patent comes at a time when Microsoft is aggressively trying to make Xbox more profitable. The company just had another round of layoffs, where it handed Halo to Activision and got rid of a Halo Studios cinematic director the same week that he was promoted. Project Helix is also lurking around the corner, and it’s probably going to be incredibly expensive, thanks to the ongoing RAM crisis.
