Following a massive 50 percent hike in Game Pass prices last year, Microsoft looks to be adopting a new strategy moving forward, as the company has now dropped the price of both the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass tiers of its game subscription service.
As announced via Xbox Wire, these price changes are effective immediately, with Game Pass Ultimate seeing a drop from US$29.99 to US$22.99 a month, while PC Game Pass has dropped from US$16.49 to US$13.99 a month. Of course, these prices will vary by region, with the prices for each tier in Singapore now being $21.90 and $13.90 a month, respectively.
While good news for sure, this change also comes at a cost, as the service will lose day-one availability for the Call of Duty franchise. This means that starting from now, any new Call of Duty game will not be available on Game Pass at launch, and will only be added “during the following holiday season (about a year later)”. Existing games in the franchise, however, will continue to be available.
“Our players cover a wide breadth of geographies, preferences, and tastes, so while there isn’t a single model that’s best for everyone, this change responds to a lot of feedback we’ve gotten so far,” wrote Microsoft in a statement. ”We’ll continue to listen and learn.”
This movie seems to be one initiated by the newly minted Microsoft Gaming CEO, Asha Sharma, in what looks to be an effort to repair their trust within the gaming community following the string of price hikes of both the subscription service and Xbox’s console and gaming peripherals. Hints of the price drop were first reported by The Verge, which shared a leaked internal memo by Sharma, which stated that “Game Pass has become too expensive for players” and that the company needed a “better value equation”.
Game Pass might have lost one of its heavy hitters with the departure of Call of Duty from its list of day-one launch titles, but the overall price drop will certainly sit well with the wider gaming community, especially in the current landscape where things usually see price hikes, not the other way around. Still, it remains to be seen how the departure of Call of Duty will affect subscriber counts, and if it can maintain this lower price point in the long run.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
Si Jia
