Xbox Game Pass prices are going down, but future Call of Duty games won't be added until 'about a year' after they launch

A week after new Xbox chief Asha Sharma said Game Pass had become "too expensive," Microsoft has announced a pretty significant cut in the price: An Xbox Wire post says Game Pass Ultimate has dropped from $29.99 per month to $22.99, while PC Game Pass is going from $16.49 to $13.99. Naturally, as the lawyers like to say, "prices may vary by region."

The cuts don't take the cost of Game Pass back to where it was prior to the massive price hike in October 2025, when Game Pass Ultimate was available for $19.99 and PC Game Pass was $11.99. Still, it's movement in the right direction, and a $3 price hike on Ultimate is a lot easier to swallow than a 50% hike.

The reduction in Game Pass pricing does not come without a cost, however. Beginning with the next release in the series, Call of Duty games will not come to Game Pass at launch: Instead, they'll be added to both the Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass "during the following holiday season (about a year later)," Microsoft said. The change will not impact CoD games that are already on Game Pass, however.

That's a big change that may blunt the impact of the Game Pass price reductions, but it's possible Microsoft has decided that the economics work out better this way regardless. Microsoft reportedly lost an estimated $300 million in sales of Black Ops 6 because the game was available on Game Pass at launch, while a staggering 82% of the game's full-price sales in October 2025 were on PlayStation 5, where Game Pass isn't available. You have to sell an awful lot of Game Pass subscriptions to generate that kind of cash, and this step back from Game Pass uber alles could indicate that Microsoft is finally starting to accept (or at least acknowledge) the possibility that the service has plateaued.

"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," Microsoft said of the price and game cuts. "We’ll continue to listen and learn."

The Game Pass price-and-games cuts are also seemingly part of the ongoing disavowal of former Xbox president Sarah Bond, who resigned in February when Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer retired. Sharma promised to"recommit to our core Xbox fans and players" when she took the reins in February, leading us to wonder about the future of the "everything is an Xbox" strategy formed under Bond's guidance. A month later, we found out: It's gone.