Xbox Cloud Gaming beta now live on consoles

Microsoft has begun rolling out a beta of its Xbox Cloud Gaming service to consoles, with the feature now available to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers in the U.S. and 24 other regions.

The feature is now live on both Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S consoles. After you update to the latest system software, you can access the cloud by navigating to a Game Pass title you haven’t yet installed on your hard drive. When you select a supported game, there should be a new “Play” button. Select that, and you should be up and running inside of 30 seconds.

The feature isn’t live on all games, but you’ll be able to tell those that are supported by a cloud icon.

There are a few major advantages to gaming using the cloud. For starters, you no longer need to worry about the games you want to try out taking up space on your hard drive, and you don’t need to spend time on the download before you can start playing.

But quite possibly the best advantage is that anyone with an Xbox One will be able to play out next-gen exclusive games without having to buy a new console. Given the continuing scarcity of the Xbox Series X/S, that’s a huge boon. Starting today, Xbox One owners can try out Recompile, The Medium, and The Riftbreaker, even though those game’s won’t run natively on the older console.

Unfortunately, not every Series X/S exclusive supports the cloud yet. Microsoft Flight Simulator, perhaps the console’s most impressive showcase, will join the cloud service in “early 2022,” Microsoft says.