Xbox Cloud Gaming may soon allow purchased games to stay playable after leaving Game Pass

You will soon be able to continue playing certain games on the Xbox Cloud Gaming platform even after these games leave the Game Pass Ultimate subscription. The only condition? You need to have it purchased separately.

The details come from a recently surfaced snippet of code, which includes references to “Leaving Soon” messaging for games on the service. Eagled-eyed folks on X (formerly Twitter) spotted it, and it’s really worth a look.

The highlighted code includes three key strings:

Leaving_Soon_Title: "Leaving " + e[0]

Leaving_Soon_Subtitle: "Buy to keep playing on Cloud and more"

Leaving_Soon_Fallback_Title: "Leaving soon"

The string suggests that the Redmond tech giant is seriously considering a “Bring Your Own Game” approach for the Xbox Cloud Gaming platform, although the feature is not available yet for any of the current “Leaving Soon” titles.

To be able to play games on the Xbox Cloud Gaming, you need to subscribe to the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier.

The feature, currently in Beta, lets you stream select games on devices like Samsung Smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV, VR headsets, and supported smartphones, tablets, and PCs via xbox.com/play. You can even play these games using Bluetooth-supported controllers from Sony’s PS5.

The news arrives as Microsoft continues its push for cloud gaming, or in its own words, to “play Xbox without an Xbox.”

Besides these devices, Xbox Cloud Gaming is also coming to LG TVs later this year, although details of supported devices are currently scarce.