Microsoft Drastically Cuts Xbox Game Pass Prices While Removing Call of Duty from Day-One Lineup

— New Xbox Head Asha Sharma Leads Strategic Pivot: 23% Price Drop, But Annual Blockbuster Delayed by One Year

April 2026 — Microsoft’s gaming subscription service, Xbox Game Pass, is undergoing a dramatic strategic shift. Just six months after its largest price hike ever, Microsoft today announced significant price reductions for Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass — while simultaneously confirming that, starting this year, new Call of Duty games will no longer be available on day one and will instead arrive approximately one year after release, during the following holiday season.

This “one cut, one pullback” combination marks a major reassessment of the value proposition of game subscription services and reflects the rapid response of new Xbox head Asha Sharma to her internal assessment that “Game Pass has become too expensive.”

Price Rollback: Up to 23% Reduction, Returning to 2024 Levels

According to Microsoft’s official announcement, effective immediately, the monthly price of Game Pass Ultimate (the top tier) will drop from $29.99 to $22.99 — a 23% reduction. PC Game Pass will drop from $16.49 to $13.99 per month, a 15% decrease. Existing subscribers will see the new pricing applied automatically at the start of their next billing cycle. Microsoft described this as a global change, with regional pricing varying by market.

Notably, this price cut directly reverses the memorable 50% price hike from October 2025, when Game Pass Ultimate jumped from $20 to $30, triggering a massive wave of cancellations that temporarily crashed the subscription cancellation page due to overwhelming traffic.

The Core Trade-Off: Call of Duty No Longer Day-One, Delayed by One Year

Alongside the price drop, Microsoft announced another major change: new Call of Duty titles will no longer be day-one releases on Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass. Starting this year, each annual Call of Duty release (typically arriving in October or November) will be added to the subscription library approximately one year later, during the following holiday season. Previous Call of Duty games will remain available to subscribers.

This change directly touches one of the most closely watched promises following Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. At the time, Microsoft stated that adding Call of Duty to Game Pass would not lead to a price increase. Yet the 2025 price hike was in fact closely tied to the inclusion of COD. Today’s decision to lower prices while stripping out day-one COD access is seen as a major correction of the previous model.

Why the Reversal? New CEO Says “Game Pass Has Become Too Expensive”

According to an internal memo leaked to The Verge last week, new Xbox head Asha Sharma told employees: “Game Pass Ultimate has become too expensive for too many players. ” In a social media post accompanying today’s announcement, she added: “We’ll keep learning and evolving Game Pass to better match what matters to players.”

Industry analysts believe Microsoft’s decision stems from two real-world challenges. First, including a $70 triple-A blockbuster like Call of Duty on day one carries content costs that far exceed new subscription revenue. Bloomberg previously reported, citing an anonymous employee, that Microsoft lost an estimated $300 million in direct sales of Call of Duty games due to their inclusion in Game Pass, while subscriber growth remained limited. Second, excessive pricing led to significant user churn, weakening the long-term value of the subscription service.

The Math for Players: Save $84 a Year, But Lose a New Game

In the U.S. market, the annual cost of Game Pass Ultimate falls from $360 to $276, saving $84 per year. However, the trade-off is the inability to play the new $70 Call of Duty title at launch via the subscription. For players who only buy Call of Duty each year and have little interest in the other 400+ games in the library, buying the game separately may actually be more economical.

Microsoft did not disclose whether it plans to introduce more flexible, customizable tiers in the future. Previously leaked codenames “Duet” and “Triton” suggest Microsoft may be exploring models that allow users to mix and match service components (such as removing cloud gaming or purchasing day-one blockbuster access separately).

Industry Implications: A Rational Correction for Subscription Models Amid a Wave of Entertainment Inflation

Over the past year, entertainment subscription services have seen price increases far exceeding inflation. Netflix, Spotify, CrunchyRoll, YouTube Premium, and others all raised prices significantly between 2025 and 2026. Microsoft’s counter-trend price cut is not only a self-correction of its own strategy but may also prompt the industry to rethink the value proposition of subscription models.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), during its antitrust challenge to Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, noted that Microsoft’s decision to put Call of Duty into the most expensive tier while simultaneously raising prices violated its promise that “the acquisition would not lead to a price increase.” Microsoft’s voluntary price cut and removal of day-one COD access may also be partly motivated by a desire to address regulatory concerns.

Looking Ahead: Flexible Subscriptions as a New Direction

In her memo, Sharma emphasized: “Short term, Game Pass 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.”

If the price cuts attract enough new subscribers while protecting retail revenue by delaying Call of Duty’s addition, Microsoft may find a more sustainable balance between subscription and outright purchases. If subscriber growth remains limited, Microsoft could pursue more aggressive customization options, possibly reintroducing day-one access for select blockbusters or bundling with non-gaming services like Netflix or Minecraft Realms.

Regardless, Game Pass’s “reverse move” has dropped a bombshell on the 2026 game subscription market. Players will be watching closely: after losing the day-one halo of Call of Duty, can lower prices truly win back their hearts?

About Xbox Game Pass
Microsoft’s game subscription service offers unlimited access to hundreds of console and PC games, plus extras like EA Play and Ubisoft+ Classics. As of early 2024, all tiers combined had 34 million subscribers. The latest price changes took effect in April 2026.