Microsoft announced on Tuesday a price reduction for its Xbox Game Pass subscription service, while confirming that future Call of Duty titles will no longer be available on the service on their release day. This marks the first major strategic shift under new leadership for the company's gaming division.
The price adjustments take effect immediately. According to Microsoft's announcement, the monthly fee for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate has been lowered from $29.99 to $22.99, a reduction of approximately 23%. The PC Game Pass monthly fee has been reduced from $16.49 to $13.99. These changes are effective immediately, with existing subscribers seeing the new rates automatically applied to their accounts after April 22.
The two lower-priced tiers, Game Pass Essential and Game Pass Premium, will maintain their current prices. These tiers do not include new release games on their launch day.
In a departure from previous strategy, Microsoft confirmed that starting this year, new Call of Duty series titles will not be added to either Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass on their release day. New titles will be added to the service's library approximately one year after their initial launch. Existing Call of Duty games currently available in the Game Pass library are unaffected by this change.
A related statement indicated: "Game Pass remains a great place for players to discover games... We will continue to support Game Pass through our library content and by adding new titles to the Ultimate service approximately one year after their release."
This price reduction comes only about six months after the last significant price increase. In October 2025, Microsoft had raised the Game Pass Ultimate price by 50% to $29.99 per month, which sparked considerable user dissatisfaction.
In February of this year, the long-time head of Xbox retired, and a new executive took over as CEO of Microsoft's gaming business. According to media reports, the new leader acknowledged in an internal memo that "Game Pass has become too expensive for too many players" and expressed the need for a "better value equation."
Analysts point out that when Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard, the day-one inclusion of Call of Duty on Game Pass was considered a core selling point for the service. However, media reports suggest this strategy led to Microsoft losing over $300 million in sales revenue from Call of Duty alone last year.
This adjustment effectively represents a rebalancing by Microsoft between user growth and profitability: attracting lapsed users back through lower prices, while protecting sales revenue by removing the high-cost Call of Duty franchise from the day-one release lineup. For users who purchase Call of Duty annually, the actual savings are limited; while the annual subscription fee is reduced by $84, they will need to spend an additional $70 to purchase the game separately.
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