“Game Pass is central to gaming value on Xbox. It’s also clear that the current model isn’t the final one,” says Sharma. “Short term, Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation. Long term, we will evolve Game Pass into a more flexible system which will take time to test and learn around.”
Microsoft hiked the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to $29.99 per month last year, a massive 50 percent hike. The company tried to justify the price hike with a variety of upgrades across all of its Xbox Game Pass tiers, but the cost increase has clearly taken its toll on Game Pass.
I understand that part of the cost increase for Game Pass was down to Microsoft’s decision to add Call of Duty into the subscription service. I reported nearly two years ago that Microsoft had been debating whether to put new releases of Call of Duty into Game Pass, with concerns from some at the company at the time that the revenue generated from typical Call of Duty sales would be undermined by Game Pass. Microsoft went on to add Call of Duty to Game Pass in the summer of 2024.
Over the weekend, Windows Central’s Jez Corden hinted that Microsoft might be about to take Call of Duty out of Game Pass. “If they take Call of Duty out of Game Pass this year, which is a possibility from what I’ve heard, I think it will kind of reveal some of the cracks in the strategy, possibly,” said Corden on the XB2+1 podcast.
Sharma references the “online chatter” about rumors of Microsoft changing Game Pass pricing, and says she’ll “go deeper” with Xbox employees next week. I wouldn’t expect any immediate price changes in the coming days, but it certainly seems that Sharma is aware of the Game Pass pricing issues and is getting ready to address them in the coming weeks.
If fix, call me a full time believer.
It’s been discussed on the last Day One podcast, but taking out Call of Duty would make Game Pass whole strategy de-facto obsolete.
In the mean time, 30$/€ a month is too much for most people. It’s a tricky situation.
It would have been easy to do, but the price is big. Irony. Anyway, let’s see what is their resolution.
Give me a cheaper Gamepass PC without Activision (CoD, Diablo…), EA Play and some other filler and i’ll subscribe again ( i mean i will anyways at some point but this would help ^^ ).
Some good moves by Asha, now announce GoW and/or some other 1st party games without PS5 logo and im team Xbox next gen too if they create a good machine, i’ll have to upgrade around 2027-2028 anyways.
#believe
I’m going to wait and see of course, but the rumor of no longer including CoD doesn’t make me feel like I will like the changes.
Personally, I’d gladly take a cheaper tier without COD. The last one I really enjoyed was Modern Warfare 2019.
Personally I would love a version without CoD, Fortnite Battle pass, EA play, Xcloud or Ubisoft classics. As all these services and games get little to no use from me.
I’m not entirely sure how you go about making it cheaper without reducing what is offered. Any reduction in price would almost assuredly include a worsening of the value provided.
Personally, I want CoD to stay. But would happily give up Fornite Crew, EA Play, and Ubisoft Classics.
And for me, EA Play and XCloud are major value adds. It’s going to be tough to figure out the right proposition to make it attractive to everyone, without slicing and dicing it into an unwieldy number of tiers!
I am currently, and likely perpetually, on ultimate. So if I had my druthers, I’d ask that I at least get to pick the add-on services included with my subsciption. Like I would rather have Fallout 1st than Ubisoft Classics. Or just leave ultimate alone and tinker with the lower tiers.
But I agree that it doesnt seem to be an easy task to figure how to make people happy.
It’s like I said. I believe the decision could be easy if you simply just do it. The problem is when you start thinking ahead of its decision. They’re definitely thinking of the best least damaging decision of them all.
Bring on the Build Your Own package. Premium will be the floor, and then you can choose between
- Day One XGS & Bethesda Games
- ABK add-on
- EA Play add-on
- Ubi+ add-on
- Third-party Day One
- Then all the different sub services under their umbrella
My two cents:
For Ultimate, remove both EA Plus and Ubisoft classics, only keep the fortnight battle pass stuff. That way, you don’t remove COD and keep most people in. At least its what i think.
As much as choosing our own add ons is concern I don’t see them letting us remove things we don’t want. They’re just going to pickout something that they think will make them a lot of money while providing a lower pricing.
So CoD no longer Game Pass is pretty much the big one, but imo, it will lose CoD more players and Microtransactions. As it’s likely everyone playing on Game Pass was never going to buy it.
Every tier includes XCloud and PC games now. That’s probably by design for their ubiquitous ecosystem goals. The Fortnite Crew was part of a larger partnership with Fortnite, so I don’t know if they can take it out right now or if that’d break some contractual obligation. Otherwise that’s just premium except premium comes at the cost of losing day one games seemingly because it’s so much cheaper.
Whatever changes they make, keep every Xbox 1st party Day 1 on GP Ultimate, including CoD.
If they were to remove CoD from being Day 1 on GP Ultimate due to revenue concerns supposedly, then that will set a bad precedent where MS can decide to remove certain high profile Xbox games from being Day 1 for the same reasons.
At this point the pricing makes sense to me. Xbox pushed game pass day one games back when they had barely any studios and that meant like one or two games a year (if that) of varying quality. Then they started doing deals for third party games and massively built up their first party pipeline through acquisitions and XGS publishing deals. There’s too many day one games and those games cost too much to make and release too close to each other for this model to work. Ultimate at $30 isn’t something most people will buy into, and that seems like the point. It’s such a high price point that you can only really justify it if you are someone who has chosen to replace buying games with game pass.
Premium at $15 a month with all first party games promised a year after launch minus COD feels like what Game Pass should’ve sold itself on in the first place to future proof itself. That’s far more sustainable while also being a value that Sony and Nintendo don’t match. It now seems like the tier that SHOULD be default, but unfortunately to most people that’s ultimate because they followed the “day one games” promise that Game Pass popularized itself on.
I’m curious to see whether Sharma lowers the price by removing COD or other day one games which will lead to Game Pass and Xbox getting a LOT of mud slung at them and appease online crowds at the cost of mass market appeal (we know COD did really really good numbers for Xbox, or if she straight up has Microsoft Gaming revenue take the L and lowers Ultimate by like $5 without changing anything. The latter would be the best possible situation. Curious what long term more flexible means. Do we see a more modular service? Yearly subs for two months free? Ads? The problem with “more flexible” is that general consumers don’t like too many options. It has to be flexible without being confusing.
I’m not thrilled by the price rise obviously, but I still like the value in Ultimate even if I don’t play CoD or Fortnite.
I still want the option to play the CoD campaign if they ever sort accessibility, as I did love the early games and they are big and flashy.
If anything, I’d take add ons - give me the EA and Ubi tiers that have Day 1 games in them for say an extra £15 a month and I’d probably jump at it (I do wish both services did discounts for Game Pass members who already have the lowest tier, like I can upgrade the Paramount with ads I get with Sky to one without).
So yeah as a gamer who’s time poor but OK for spending I’m with those hoping they leave Ultimate alone - or do some option to mix and match (although that might be messy).
Losing CoD would suck but not affect me too much, but if it set a precedent for big games that’d be bad - would they then do the same if they think FH7 will be huge, or a new Halo?
Jez clarified that he really doesn’t know the game plan for Game Pass cost reduction if any, but the reason CoD is the foreground is due to it being the reason to raise the price as it is. We have to wait and see if they find a way to reduce the cost and if so, what is the (no pun intended) price.