Xbox Knocks Down Game Pass Price At The Cost Of ‘Call Of Duty’

InnovationGamingXbox Knocks Down Game Pass Price At The Cost Of ‘Call Of Duty’ByPaul Tassi,Senior Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet.Follow AuthorApr 21, 2026, 11:59am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.Black Ops 7XboxNew Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has rolled out her first major decision, one of many likely to reverse some of Xbox’s major changes and pursuits over the past few years. That would be undoing the enormous, ridiculous 50% price increase to Xbox Game Pass from $20 to $30 a month. Now, that’s been hacked back down, but not all the way, and there’s a catch.Game Pass Ultimate will drop from $30 a month to $23 a month, a 23% drop this time, though still a 15% increase from the old figure. PC Game Pass is down from $16.50 to $14 as well.The catch here is something that was rumored before today’s announcement, that Xbox will now remove future Call of Duty titles as Game Pass Day One launches, and they will only be added a full year later. This does not affect current COD titles players already have access to, but yes, that will start this fall with the as-of-yet unannounced new entry. There is no word about a potential discount for Game Pass subscribers, but doing the math, $240+$70= $310 to buy COD independently is still less than the $360 price based on the former $30 a month. But since that price was totally crazy, I’m not sure this is exactly an epic win. It’s still worse than where things were before all this.Xbox Game PassMSDay One Call of Duty launches on Game Pass were one of the most important sign-up draws once that series went under Microsoft’s umbrella. Now, if that’s removed, even with that “technically the math is better” situation, that’s likely to result in more cancellations.The main issue with Game Pass remains, that it seems to have smashed prett...