In the UK, Game Pass Ultimate has dropped from £22.99 to £16.99 a month and PC Game Pass from £13.49 to £10.99 a month, with prices varying by region. New Call of Duty games will only be added to Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass about a year after they are released. This announcement marks a departure from some other subscription services, many of which have been criticised for regularly hiking monthly prices.
The price cuts come six months after Microsoft hiked the price of the Game Pass subscription service by more than 50%. A recent leaked internal memo from new Xbox boss Asha Sharma admitted Game Pass had become too expensive for players. Despite the current reduction, the Ultimate subscription tier is still 35% more than it was two years ago.
Listening to feedback.
Xbox, as with many other companies in the industry, has been hit with waves of layoffs and cancelled projects over recent years. An announcement in 2024 that Xbox would begin to publish formerly exclusive titles on other consoles was met with backlash from fans. Microsoft's Xbox division is working on a new console, code-named Project Helix.
Netflix increased its subscription prices in the UK in February, after raising them in the US, Canada, Argentina and Portugal earlier in the year. The price cut reflects the challenge Microsoft faces to regain fans' trust in the brand.
A trust issue.
Reaction from fans was mixed, with some praising Xbox for listening to feedback on prices, while others noted it created a trust issue over what other first-party games could be removed in future.
Business professor Joost van Dreunen believed it was likely Xbox will start relying much more heavily on advertising rather than subscription services or content to make money. Under Asha Sharma, Xbox was more likely to behave like a scaled platform business, monetizing audience attention rather than just access to content.
The big losers from this cut are those who subscribe to Game Pass for a month or two to play the latest Call of Duty, and then leave.