Only about six months after Microsoft increased the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, the company has lowered the cost for its gaming subscription service. There is, however, one big catch that will affect Call of Duty fans.
Microsoft says it has reduced the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate from $30 to $23 a month. PC Game Pass, the subscription meant only for PC games and not for consoles, has also dropped from $16.49 to $14. Both price changes go into effect immediately.
The company didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the price of the other tiers -- Essential and Premium -- would also get a price change.
The big trade-off for the lower subscription cost is that Call of Duty games will no longer be available on launch day, which is standard practice for games developed by Microsoft-owned studios. Instead, starting this year, new Call of Duty games will come to the service a year after their release. This means the upcoming Call of Duty, typically released annually in late October or early November, wouldn't be available on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass until the 2027 holiday season.
Earlier this month, newly appointed Xbox chief Asha Sharma was quoted in an internal memo saying the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate had become "too expensive."
"Game Pass is central to gaming value on Xbox. It's also clear that the current model isn't the final one," Sharma said in a leaked memo, according to The Verge. "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."
Microsoft increased the price of the service's highest tier last October from $20 to $30. There were incremental jumps in 2023 and 2024 of $2 to $3, but last year's $10 hike was jarring and led to so many cancellations that the page to cancel the service crashed on the day the news broke. Game Pass is just one of the many entertainment-related services being hit with streamflation.