People were worried about GTA6 costing $100 on launch. How about $100 per month if you want to play a couple hours a night and half a day on weekends? That's a lot, but I bet it's not uncommon.
It's the perfect testing scenario for those who want to take away ownership and replace it with forever rentals. They have a super popular game that people are desperate to play, the studio isn't launching it on PC for day 1, and the AI industry has given them an excuse to push console pricing over the moon.
Cynical people would see it as being very, very convenient.
The big tech companies are loving their invented supply crisis because it's price anchoring everyone into thinking that owning a PC or console or doing any type of gaming should cost half your paycheck.
Good for Microsoft though. A lot of people were probably considering a console purchase just for GTA6 and spending a few hundred dollars for a streaming service while waiting for the PC port is going to seem like a "good deal".
1. https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/09/03/xbox-cloud-gaming-cha...
Update 10/6/2026 11:42 p.m.: Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball has said that The Verge‘s report from earlier today claiming Xbox had exclusive streaming rights to GTA 6 was “misreporting.”
“We are looking forward to launching GTAVI on XBOX November 19, though the game will not be streaming exclusively or to PC.”
So it’ll be streaming on multiple platforms?
> or to PC
If it’s streaming, but not to PC, what’s it streaming to?
Xbox consoles probably.
Apparently they're introducing a pay-as-you-go option next month. So instead of paying $80/$100 upfront, you'd pay it (or more!) gradually as you stream the game.
- I don't buy the game, I pay a cloud rental fee and can play so long as my membership is active? Unlimited hours?
- I buy the game, but don't have to use up hard drive space?
- So long as I have an Xbox streaming account, I could stream on my PC? A tablet?
It means it won't be available on Geforce Now, Netflix, or Amazon Luna
On the other hand I've sunk thousands of hours into sim games and I wouldn't call it reality avoidance.
I wouldn't even be a tiny bit surprised if finishing GTA6 via streaming costs you $200-300.
Microsoft is going to be charging you per hour to play GTA 6.
Video games I believe are similar. There are a massive amount of good video games from the past, but that does not mean all of the best or even your favorite one were already created in the past. Same as the "best" song did not come out or was discovered in your twenties.
Another poster also already made the point, but you will also miss out on community. I spent a lot of time on the Dreamcast playing Phantasy Star Online back when it was new. Playing that exact same game on my Dreamcast today is in no way the same experience it would be today.
I absolutely find it disgusting that there seems to be an end goal of trying to remove ownership of games. A lot needs to be done to ensure game preservation continues. But I also really disagree that this transition being forced on people by the greedy is unimportant because you can just play old games.
Does not justify investment in hardware or full price buy
Ps couldn't read TFA as it's paywalled
Back in the day Doom was literally the number one PC software and everyone copied it. At no detriment to anyone, considering gaming is now the number one entertainment in the world by revenue.
But modern console games are little morcels chopped up and force fed to customers that have no ownership or choice. MSFT is proudly boasting how little of the game the plebs are "exclusively" allowed to stream.
Kids these days don't know how bad they have it.