For Prime Day 2024, Amazon is offering a fantastic deal on a bundle that gives you everything you need to play Xbox games without a console. Microsoft recently teamed up with Amazon to bring cloud gaming to Fire Stick devices, and the online retailer is now selling a bundle with a 4K Max Fire Stick device, a robot white Xbox controller, and three months of Game Pass Ultimate for only $79. Alternatively, you get can all of that but with only one month of Game Pass Ultimate for $69.
Fire Stick 4K Max with Robot white Xbox controller and 3 months of Game Pass Ultimate — $79 (list price $120)Fire Stick 4K Max with Robot white Xbox controller and 1 month of Game Pass Ultimate — $69 (list price $110)
This deal is for Prime members. If you’re not currently a subscriber, you can sign up for Prime here.
A major thing to know here is that the Game Pass codes are only for new subscribers, so if you already have Game Pass, this might not be the best offer for you. As it happens, though, Amazon has its Fire Stick devices discounted nicely right now for Prime Day, while Xbox controllers are discounted, too.
Most games from the Game Pass catalog are available to stream over the cloud, but not all of them. You can visit the Xbox website and use the “cloud” filter to see a full list of supported games. Also note that you will need a strong and consistent internet connection to play Xbox games over the cloud, and you might also want to check with your ISP about any data caps you might have.
Xbox cloud gaming is supported in more than 25 countries around the world. You can visit the Xbox cloud gaming website and search for your home country to see if you can stream games where you live.
Microsoft offers Xbox cloud gaming as an option for people who don’t own an Xbox but still want to play Xbox games. The least-expensive Xbox out there is the $300 Xbox Series S, so the ability to take advantage of this Prime Day deal might be attractive to a number of people. Microsoft has always said it does not expect cloud gaming to overtake or replace the traditional hardware-based model, and to that end, Microsoft is cooking up a new Xbox device now.
Microsoft itself at one point was thinking about creating its own streaming-focused Xbox device of some type, but Microsoft’s R&D teams couldn’t get its components’ price down low enough for it to make sense as a commercial product. So instead, Microsoft is working with companies like Amazon and Samsung to help expand Xbox’s footprint in the streaming space.
Whereas Microsoft used to spend a lot of time, money, and attention on trying to convince people to buy new Xbox hardware, that isn’t the company’s sole focus any longer. The wider goal, it seems, is to expand the Xbox ecosystem to as many people as possible, and to convince them to sign up for Game Pass.
More than 20 million people have already used Xbox cloud gaming, and that figure no doubt stands to grow bigger still in the months and years to come.
