After some rumours in recent weeks, Microsoft has confirmed that they are cutting the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, and that they will also no longer release Call of Duty games on day one into these tiers of the subscription service.
Game Pass Ultimate is dropping from $29.99 /  £22.99 to $22.99 / £16.99 per month, while PC Game Pass is going from $16.49 / £13.49 to $13.99 / £10.99. Regional pricing applies and will affect your local reduction.
For Call of Duty games, they will still be added to the libraries, but will arrive for Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass “about a year later”. No games are being removed, so Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7 are remaining a part of the library.
This change does not affect the other tiers, Game Pass Premium and Game Pass Essential, and it also does not affect the inclusion of EA Play, Ubisoft+ or Fortnite Crew within their tiers, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and all the other day one games from across Xbox studios.
Microsoft drew a lot of criticism for the price increase that was levied on Game Pass last October, ramping up the price of the top tier of the service from $20 to $30. To help justify the massive 50% price jump, they threw in Fortnite Crew and Ubisoft+ subscriptions, but I think everyone figured that this was more about clawing back some of the reduced revenue that Call of Duty was then able to draw directly from Xbox and PC gamers.
While losing Call of Duty will reduce a major draw to the service each year – though arguably not last year, given how unliked Black Ops 7 was – this does help to make the services more affordable at a time of economic hardship. However, it is worth noting that it’s not a full reversal. Game Pass Ultimate is still $3 / £2 more than it was before the hike, and PC Game Pass is similarly $2 / £1 pricier.
Still, amongst Xbox gamers, this is likely to be seen as a positive move from new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who took over from Phil Spencer earlier this year.
Source: Xbox
