Indian Xbox players are seeing clear signs that Microsoft is quietly trialling Xbox Cloud Gaming in India. The clearest hint is a “Play with cloud” button that has begun appearing inside the Xbox app on Windows for some accounts in the country. At least one user reports having streamed Cricket 24, complete with a telemetry overlay that surfaced bitrate, packet loss, ping, and jitter, which is typical of limited tests where quality metrics are monitored closely. Although the experience is not available to everyone, the breadcrumbs suggest Microsoft is warming up servers and clients ahead of a formal announcement.
SurveyOfficial pricing plans yet to go live
Public-facing pages still show no signs of Xbox Cloud Gaming. If you visit the cloud portal in India, you are greeted with the standard store page with no callouts indicating that the cloud service is live in India. The Indian Game Pass hub does not list cloud streaming as a benefit on the local comparison pages. The page positions Ultimate at the top, with Premium, Essential, and PC Game Pass below, and highlights catalogue size, day-one releases for Ultimate, and other perks, while omitting any explicit cloud call-out in the India view. Cloud access remains tied to specific tiers in Microsoft’s global pages.
In India, subscription pricing currently sits at ₹1,389 per month for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, ₹699 per month for Game Pass Premium, and ₹499 per month for Game Pass Essential. PC Game Pass is listed separately at ₹939 per month. These figures appear consistently across Microsoft’s store pages for India.
“Play with cloud” app button
The appearance of “Play with cloud” inside the Windows Xbox app is the most credible signal that capacity is being brought online, likely in local or nearby Azure regions to manage latency. Microsoft often enables app-based entry points during validation phases before updating web availability or marketing copy. ‘bajiraav’, a redditor on the Xbox India Subreddit posted a screenshot of Cricket24 with telemetry overlay, showing bitrate, loss, ping, and jitter, is consistent with these controlled rollouts where engineers watch network stability across major ISPs before widening access. The fact that Cricket 24 is cloud-playable in other regions dovetails neatly with accounts of it working during the India test.
How to access Xbox Cloud Gaming in India
Once Microsoft flips the switch, there are two straightforward routes. On Windows, install or update the Xbox app, sign in with an account on Ultimate, Premium, or Essential, then open a supported game and look for the “Play with cloud” option. Microsoft’s support documentation covers controller setup and other requirements for cloud play on the app. On the web, you would head to xbox.com/play and sign in, provided India is listed among supported regions. At the time of writing, the Indian web launcher still shows the button greyed out, so the app route is the one surfacing test access for a subset of users. PC Game Pass subscribers should note that their plan does not include cloud streaming.
If you are waiting to try it, look for three tells that usually mark general availability. First, the xbox.com/play page should drop the selected-regions banner when accessed from India. Second, cloud badges should start appearing against game listings in the India catalogue pages, particularly on titles that already carry the badge globally, such as Cricket 24. Third, expect an official post on Xbox Wire or regional social channels once telemetry looks healthy at scale. These indicators typically arrive in quick succession when Microsoft opens a new territory.
NVIDIA also planning to launch GeForce NOW
This quiet move from Microsoft comes as cloud competition gains momentum in India. Nvidia has signalled a formal November launch for GeForce NOW in the country, tied to a wider platform upgrade cycle that improves streaming fidelity and performance. More providers entering the market should translate into better peering and edge capacity, which benefits players who want low-latency streaming without buying new hardware.
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Mithun Mohandas
Mithun Mohandas is an Indian technology journalist with 14 years of experience covering consumer technology. He is currently employed at Digit in the capacity of a Managing Editor. Mithun has a background in Computer Engineering and was an active member of the IEEE during his college days. He has a penchant for digging deep into unravelling what makes a device tick. If there's a transistor in it, Mithun's probably going to rip it apart till he finds it. At Digit, he covers processors, graphics cards, storage media, displays and networking devices aside from anything developer related. As an avid PC gamer, he prefers RTS and FPS titles, and can be quite competitive in a race to the finish line. He only gets consoles for the exclusives. He can be seen playing Valorant, World of Tanks, HITMAN and the occasional Age of Empires or being the voice behind hundreds of Digit videos. View Full Profile
