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After Xbox CEO Asha Sharma admitted last week that “Game Pass has become too expensive for players,” Microsoft is dropping the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. Starting today, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate drops from $29.99 to $22.99 a month, and PC Game Pass moves to $13.99, down from $16.49 a month.
The price drops are being fueled in part by future of Call of Duty titles no longer joining Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass at launch. “New Call of Duty games will be added to Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass during the following holiday season (about a year later), while existing Call of Duty titles already in the library will continue to be available,” says Microsoft.
The rest of the Game Pass lineup remains unchanged, after Microsoft originally hiked prices in October. Game Pass Ultimate, Premium, and Essential will all continue to include access to Xbox Cloud Gaming. “Our players cover a wide breadth of geographies, preferences, and tastes, so while there isn’t a single model that’s best for everyone, this change responds to a lot of feedback we’ve gotten so far,” says Microsoft. “We’ll continue to listen and learn.”
I wrote last week 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 ahead and added Call of Duty to Game Pass, but the removal of new entries in the franchise from the service is a clear indication that it was a mistake to add Activision’s big revenue driver into the subscription mix.