In a surprise move, Xbox has rolled back its most recent Game Pass price hike. Effective today, Game Pass Ultimate drops from $29.99 to $22.99 per month, and PC Game Pass drops from $16.49 to $13.99 per month. The new pricing partially reverses the aggressive changes that came with October’s tier overhaul, which pushed Ultimate from $19.99 to $29.99 in a single 50 percent jump.
Alongside the price reduction, Xbox is also making a major change to how Call of Duty fits into the service. Future Call of Duty titles will no longer hit Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass at launch. Instead, new Call of Duty games will join the service the following holiday season, about a year after their original release. Existing Call of Duty titles already in the library, along with Ultimate’s in-game benefits, day one releases, and online multiplayer access, will remain in place.
This is the first major move from new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma, who took over from longtime Xbox boss Phil Spencer in February. Sharma has already acknowledged in leaked internal memos that Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so a price adjustment was clearly on the table. Today’s rollback is a direct response to that feedback, and it signals a willingness to walk back unpopular decisions, something Xbox hasn’t exactly been known for in recent years.
The past several months have been turbulent for Xbox. Along with the leadership change that saw Spencer retire and former Xbox president Sarah Bond exit the company entirely, Xbox has also killed its controversial “This Is an Xbox” marketing campaign and confirmed the next-generation Project Helix console. The October Game Pass changes in particular were seen as a breaking point for many longtime subscribers, so walking the pricing back makes sense as part of Sharma’s “return to Xbox” pitch.
The Call of Duty change is the more interesting half of this news. When Microsoft closed its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard King in October 2023, much of the strategic justification revolved around Call of Duty. The franchise was expected to drive Game Pass subscriptions, fuel engagement, and anchor the service as the flagship day one release each year. Pulling Call of Duty out of launch-day Game Pass Ultimate availability is a meaningful pivot from that original plan. It likely reflects the reality that giving away one of the industry’s biggest annual releases on a subscription service is leaving a lot of money on the table, especially when the franchise is already available on competing platforms.
Whether this combination of lower prices and a delayed Call of Duty window is enough to win back disillusioned Xbox fans remains to be seen. For now, it’s at least a clear signal that Sharma is willing to make changes, even unpopular ones internally, if she thinks they’re needed.
