Xbox Game Pass price cut comes with major content shift
Microsoft’s gaming subscription service Xbox Game Pass will be reduced in price starting today, but new Call of Duty titles will no longer be included on the service at launch, the company has confirmed, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.
Other games developed by Microsoft-owned studios will continue to be available on Game Pass from their release day, while older Call of Duty titles will remain accessible through the service.
Last October, Microsoft raised the price of its top-tier Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription by nearly 50%.
From today, the monthly fee will decrease from £22.99 to £16.99 in the UK and from $29.99 to $22.99 in the United States. PC Game Pass will also see a price reduction, falling from $16.49 to $13.99, and from £13.49 to £10.99 in the UK.
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Microsoft acquired Activision, the developer behind the Call of Duty franchise, in 2023 in a $68.7 billion deal. The 2024 release, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, was the first entry in the series to launch on Game Pass. However, a Bloomberg report citing a former Xbox employee estimated that Microsoft lost around $300 million in sales by including Call of Duty in its subscription service.
Under the new structure, future Call of Duty games will be sold at full price, typically £70 or $80, and are expected to arrive on Game Pass approximately one year after release.
Microsoft Gaming executive Asha Sharma announced the changes on X. Earlier, on 13 April, she sent a memo to Xbox staff stating that Game Pass had become too expensive, according to The Verge.
Game Pass has been central to Xbox’s strategy over the past nine years as Microsoft has attempted to shift away from a traditional console-focused business model, where it has lagged behind rivals Sony and Nintendo since the troubled launch of the Xbox One in 2013, toward a Netflix-style subscription system delivering games across multiple devices.
Since 2024, Microsoft has also released titles from its own studios on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch, in addition to Xbox hardware. The company has spent more than $86 billion acquiring game developers since 2014, beginning with its $2.5 billion purchase of Minecraft developer Mojang.
By Nijat Babayev
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