Xbox cuts Game Pass costs however new Call of Duty video games will not hit the service on day one

Xbox is cutting the costs of each Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, efficient instantly, however there’s one huge caveat. First, the excellent news: Game Pass Ultimate now prices $23 per 30 days, down from $30. PC Game Pass will now run you $14 a month as an alternative of $16.50. The Xbox crew famous in a blog post that costs could differ by area.

That’s a wise, much-needed choice. In a memo that leaked final week, new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma expressed concern over the excessive value of Game Pass, stating that it “has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation. Long term, we will evolve Game Pass into a more flexible system which will take time to test and learn around.” Sharma reiterated that publicly in a post on X.

In October, Microsoft increased Game Pass Ultimate to $30 per month, which was a 50 percent price hike. It was the second time in 15 months that the company had jacked up the monthly fee, making it an unjustifiable expense for many. The price of a PC Game Pass subscription also rose by $4.50 per month, and now Microsoft is bringing that back down a bit too.

“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,” the Xbox crew wrote. “ We’ll continue to listen and learn.”

There is one giant tradeoff here: new Call of Duty games will no longer be available on Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass on day one. They’ll eventually hit those tiers about a year later, during the following holiday season. That means Call of Duty titles will be the only first-party Xbox games that don’t hit Game Pass on their release date.

This, of course, is an attempt to generate more revenue from one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world. Call of Duty is a major reason why Microsoft shelled out $68.7 billion to buy Activision Blizzard a few years back. While Call of Duty fans on PlayStation still had to pay full price for the last few annual releases to play them as soon as possible, Xbox and PC players have been able to hop in to them via Game Pass. (There’s still no sign of Call of Duty on Switch or Switch 2 as yet!)

There had been rumors that Microsoft would carve out Call of Duty from the present variations of Game Pass and provides these tiers a value lower. Chatter means that the corporate could introduce one more, higher-level Game Pass tier (or an add-on) that may embrace day-one Call of Duty video games, however there’s no official phrase of that as but.