Game Pass Ultimate falls to $22.99 a month from $29.99, but new Call of Duty titles won't be included until about a year after release
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Microsoft $MSFT reduced the monthly price of Game Pass Ultimate to $22.99 from $29.99, effective April 21, while announcing that future Call of Duty titles will no longer be available on the subscription service at launch. PC Game Pass also dropped to $13.99 a month from $16.49.
Rather than launching day one on the service, new Call of Duty titles will arrive on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass the holiday season after they release, putting roughly a year between a game's debut and its subscription availability. Call of Duty games currently accessible through the service will not be affected by the change. Subscribers who want new titles at launch will need to purchase them separately; the most recent release is priced at $69.99, according to CNBC.
Microsoft said in a post that the changes reflect player feedback. "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," the company said in a statement.
An October price hike had added $10 to the Game Pass Ultimate monthly fee, bringing it to $29.99, and the new cut undoes that increase. According to Kotaku, the subscription debuted in 2017 at $10 monthly, then jumped to $15 after Xbox Live Gold was merged into the offering, reached $20 over subsequent years, and hit $30 last October.
The shift comes under Asha Sharma, a former Meta $META executive who became Microsoft's gaming CEO in February, replacing Phil Spencer. An internal memo Sharma circulated earlier this month flagged the subscription's cost as a problem that required a rethink, adds Kotaku. "Game Pass is central to gaming value on Xbox. It's also clear that the current model isn't the final one," Sharma wrote. "Short term, Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation."
According to CNBC, the gaming division contributed 7% of Microsoft's fourth-quarter revenue, with the unit posting a roughly 10% year-over-year decline and hardware sales sliding 32%. On a conference call, CFO Amy Hood disclosed that Xbox content and services revenue missed the company's own targets and that an impairment charge of undisclosed size had been taken against the gaming segment. Microsoft expanded its gaming division in 2023 with the $75.4 billion acquisition of Call of Duty publisher Activision $ATVI Blizzard. The company reported 34 million Game Pass subscribers as of 2024.
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