Love it or hate it, cloud gaming is here to stay. So says Microsoft, which recently revealed that 10 million users—40 percent of the number of people subscribed to the Xbox Game Pass—have given the cloud gaming portion a decent try.

A Big Win for Cloud Gaming on the Xbox Game Pass

As reported on RCR Wireless, Microsoft declared that 10 million users gave the Xbox Game Pass cloud gaming service a spin. Collectively, they managed to rack up "billions of hours" of playtime by streaming the game from Microsoft's servers onto their devices.

If you missed it, the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate now comes with the ability to play Xbox games on the cloud. When you play a game on the Xbox Game Pass cloud, Microsoft's servers do all the graphical rendering and send the result to your device as a stream. All you need is a strong internet connection and a compatible controller and you can play games just like you would on a console or gaming PC.

Because all your device needs to do is render a video feed and take controller inputs, the possibilities are endless. You can stream high-fidelity games on low-end computers, smartphones, and even your Xbox console if you're running low on storage space.

As stated in Microsoft's Earnings Call on The Motley Fool, the company is pretty pleased with its progress:

Many of our most popular titles, including Flight Simulator, are now accessible on phones, tablets, low-spec PCs for the first time. Our Game Pass library now includes hundreds of titles across PC and console, including more games from third-party publishers than ever before. Billions of hours have been played by subscribers over the past 12 months, up 45%. And with Azure, we are building the best cloud for game studios of all sizes to build, host, and grow their games, new capabilities, speed, time to development and to help connect players across platforms.

The Beginning of the Cloud Gaming Revolution?

So why are people now clocking in billions of hours in cloud gaming? RCR Wireless believes it's due to the ongoing 5G rollout. . 5G has a much better latency and bandwidth over 4G, both of which are crucial for gaming. And it's because of that that experts believe that 5G will change how we game.

However, there's also the added bonus of playing console games on PCs. Because Microsoft's servers run the game for you, there's nothing stopping you from telling the Xbox Game Pass to stream a console game to your PC. And that means you can enjoy console-exclusive games even if you don't own the console in question.

As such, there's a good chance that the improvements in internet bandwidth, combined with the luxury of playing PC and Xbox games on any device you please, were the driving force behind the Xbox Game Pass cloud gaming success. And if Microsoft plays its cards right, it can become the de facto choice for cloud gaming in the future.

Microsoft On Cloud Nine

With Microsoft seeing lots of success with its Xbox Game Pass cloud gaming service, the company is bound to capitalize on it further. We'll just have to wait and see what they choose to do in the future.