Xbox Cloud Gaming will support your game library later this year

theverge.com:

Microsoft is planning to bring a lot more games to Xbox Cloud Gaming later this year, allowing Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to stream most of their own game library. “We’re excited to share that later this year, it’s our intent to roll out the ability for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members to play, from the cloud, select games they already own or have purchased outside the Xbox Game Pass library,” says Will Tuttle, Xbox Wire editor in chief.

This expansion will make Xbox Cloud Gaming a lot more valuable, opening the service up to potentially thousands of more games. Microsoft only says “select games,” so it’s clear not every single Xbox game will be available, and the company isn’t saying anything more about its plans. But it looks like the intent is to cover most of the games you already own in your library.

Microsoft had originally promised to expand its Xbox Cloud Gaming streaming to a full library of games back in 2020, but it never happened. “In 2020 we will enable gamers to stream from the cloud Xbox games that they already own or will purchase,” said Project xCloud head Kareem Choudhry in November 2019.

Expanding Xbox Cloud Gaming beyond just Game Pass games is all part of Microsoft’s broader Xbox Everywhere initiative that the company is demonstrating further this week. Xbox Cloud Gaming is also arriving in Argentina and New Zealand today, and an Xbox TV app will appear on Samsung’s 2022 smart TVs later this month. Microsoft is also detailing its Project Moorcroft plans to bring E3-like game demos to Xbox Game Pass soon.