Xbox considering free (with ads) Game Pass tier

According to Tweaktown, part of Xbox's plans to grow out its Game Pass service in different regions of the world may involve implementing ads. 

At the recent Wells Fargo TMT Summit, CFO Tim Stuart revealed Microsoft was considering ways to get its service to players in developing regions. Citing countries like Africa or India that aren't "console-first," he speculated that it could be possible to offer the service and xCloud streaming at no cost in exchange for some ad views.

"You can say, 'hey, do you want to watch 30 seconds of an ad and then get two hours of game streaming?'" explained Stuart. "We have xCloud, so you can subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate and you can stream hundreds of games to really any endpoint that has a browser experience."

Stuart went on to note that half of Africa's population is 23 or younger, which grants them enough disposable income to potentially make a game subscription service worth investing in. The aforementioned ad model would allow Game Pass to reach "millions and millions of [players] we never would've been able to address there."

The potential future of ads and video games colliding

In recent weeks, Stuart talked about ideas Microsoft has for Game Pass expansion. Bringing it to other consoles apparently isn't as part of those plans as originally believed, but the company is clearly spending money to bring games (and by extension, players) over to the service. 

Back in 2020, then-marketing GM Aaron Greenberg called word of mouth "the most powerful marketing" for Game Pass. That could still apply here, if done correctly to encourage those unable to afford a monthly (or annual) subscription to the service.

Weeks ago, Ubisoft drew ire when players were hit with Black Friday ads for Assassin's Creed games while bringing up the in-game map. Microsoft caught similar fire for featuring pop-up ads for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023) when players first booted up their Xbox consoles. 

Though the Ubisoft one was attributed to a backend error, they both provide an idea of what in-game ads could look like. And if those aren't clear enough, there's always looking at how YouTube and Hulu insert ads into videos on their respective services.