Xbox is cutting down the price of its subscription service starting today.
As announced via Xbox Wire, Game Pass Ultimate is dropping from $29.99 to $22.99 a month, while PC Game Pass is dropping from $16.49 to $13.99 a month. Prices may vary depending on the region.
Quite notably, the company also announced that beginning this year, future Call of Duty titles won’t be part of Game Pass Ultimate or PC Games Pass at launch. Rather, new entries in the Activision series will be added to the aforementioned tiers during the following holiday season, about a year later. Titles already in the library will continue to be available, Xbox says.
“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 the announcement. ”We’ll continue to listen and learn.”
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The news comes a week after Asha Sharma, Microsoft’s new Xbox chief, reportedly said that Game Pass has “become too expensive for players,” and that Microsoft needs “a better value equation” around the subscription service.
This came from an internal memo from Sharma to Xbox employees, which was obtained and reviewed by The Verge. The memo reportedly mentioned that, long term, Sharma wants to “evolve Game Pass into a more flexible system which will take time to test and learn around.”
Back in November of last year, Microsoft reworked its Xbox subscription service to “offer more flexibility, choice, and value to all players.” This resulted in the introduction of new tiers and pricing options, with the highest tier, Ultimate, increasing 50 percent to $29.99/month from $19.99/month. Microsoft last increased the price for its Ultimate tier in 2024, when it raised the price to $19.99/month from $16.99/month.
In addition, Xbox and Netflix have “kicked around ideas” for subscription bundles that could potentially pair Xbox Game Pass with the popular entertainment streaming service. That said, there are currently no concrete plans for a Netflix-Game Pass deal.
Sharma, previously the president of Microsoft CoreAI, replaced Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer in February, after the executive retired from the company. At the time, Sharma informed employees that her “first job” involves making three commitments to “great games,” “the return of Xbox,” and “the future of play.”
“As monetization and AI evolve and influence this future, we will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop,” she added. “Games are and always will be art, crafted by humans, and created with the most innovative technology provided by us.”
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About the Author
Contributing Editor, News, GameDeveloper.com
Diego Nicolás Argüello is a freelance journalist and critic from Argentina. Video games helped him to learn English, so now he covers them for places like The New York Times, NPR, Rolling Stone, and more. He also runs Into the Spine, a site dedicated to fostering and supporting new writers, and co-hosted Turnabout Breakdown, a podcast about the Ace Attorney series. He’s most likely playing a rhythm game as you read this.
