Microsoft has announced that Game Pass subscribers will be able to play their video game libraries without any pesky hardware getting in the way, with the feature coming to Xbox Cloud Gaming some time before the start of 2023.
There’s no actual word on which Xbox games will be available on the upcoming addition to the service, or how simple it will be for a player to access their library within the xCloud, but at no additional cost to the consumer it sounds like a rather nice feature to add to Game Pass in the near future. Albeit one that will put it more directly into competition with NVIDIA GeForce NOW, Google Stadia and Amazon Luna.
This news comes alongside the announcement that from June 30, 2022 you’ll also be able to play Game Pass Ultimate games on upcoming Samsung TVs. This feature won’t be exclusive, and will eventually just be a thing that most Smart TVs can do after opening an application and syncing with any controller (it can even be a PlayStation one) over Bluetooth.
Game Pass for TV will likely also be good news for Epic Games and Fortnite, as Microsoft was also proud to share that adding the ability to play Fortnite Battle Royale on iOS and Android without subscribing to anything or installing any software had led to a large increase of new players for the latest season of content, around 20% of which had never used an Xbox account or Xbox Cloud Gaming before.
More big Xbox-related gaming announcements are expected to arrive on June 12, 2022, during their annual Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase 2022 show.