Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Drops to $22.99, But Call of Duty Leaves Day One Launches

Microsoft is cutting the price of Game Pass Ultimate from $29.99 to $22.99 a month, effective today. PC Game Pass is also dropping from $16.49 to $13.99. Prices may vary by region, but that’s a significant cut across the board.

There’s a catch, though, and it’s a big one for some fans. Starting this year, future Call of Duty titles will no longer launch on Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass on day one. New Call of Duty games will be added to the service during the following holiday season, roughly a year after release. Existing Call of Duty titles already in the Game Pass library aren’t going anywhere.

This is Microsoft essentially admitting that the math didn’t work. They spent $69 billion acquiring Activision Blizzard, made Call of Duty the crown jewel of Game Pass day one launches, and then realized they were leaving too much money on the table by giving the biggest annual shooter franchise away to subscribers on release day. Call of Duty sells tens of millions of copies at full price every year. Putting it on Game Pass day one was a statement move to drive subscriptions, but if the subscription revenue didn’t offset the lost retail sales, this was always going to happen.

The price drop softens the blow. Seven dollars a month is real money over the course of a year, and Game Pass Ultimate is still a solid deal for the hundreds of other games in the library, online multiplayer access, and day one launches for everything that isn’t Call of Duty.

Microsoft framed this as responding to player feedback, which is corporate speak for “we looked at the numbers and made a business decision.” That’s fine. Just say that. The people subscribing to your service are smart enough to understand that giving away your biggest franchise for free wasn’t sustainable.

The question now is whether this is the start of a trend. If Call of Duty gets pulled from day one launches, what’s next? Does the next Elder Scrolls get the same treatment? At some point, the value of Game Pass is directly tied to what’s available on day one, and every title that gets delayed erodes that value, even if the monthly price goes down.

For now, the trade-off is clear: cheaper subscription, but you’re buying Call of Duty separately from now on if you care about that franchise.

What do you think of the change? Drop a comment below or come talk about it in the Vortex Effect forums.