It’s one thing to talk about doing something, and it’s another to actually make good on that talk. For a long time, Xbox executives were known for talking themselves in circles to the point where they became walking contradictions. The result was a lot of empty word salad with very little meat to take from anything being said.
That way of doing things is seemingly on the way out, as the new CEO of Xbox, Asha Sharma, has made a big decision by reducing the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate from $29.99 USD to $22.99 USD. Even if that comes with the removal of day-one access to Xbox’s biggest game, Call of Duty, from the service, what matters even more is that Sharma is not resting on this one decision. She is committed to evaluating further and making more changes where necessary. It’s also worth mentioning that PC Game Pass also saw a price drop and is priced at $13.99 instead of $16.49.
Is Xbox Game Pass Ultimate a Better Deal Now?
One week after a leaked memo from Sharma herself, first reported on by The Verge, stated that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate had become too expensive, she has now acted on it.
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.
Sharma has now delivered on that memo by bringing down the price of the highest and most lucrative tier of the service by $7, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate has dropped from $29.99 to $22.99 per month. It is still higher than its original $19.99 USD price, but considering inflation, tariffs, almost everything else in life also going up in price, and the fact that Fortnite Crew and Ubisoft+ Classics are still included, there is some justification for retaining the $3 increase.
In total, the yearly cost has now dropped to $276, as opposed to the previous $360. Xbox also accomplished something that seemed impossible for any subscription service to do lately, which is bring the price down instead of up.
Perhaps an even better proposition now, for anyone with a decent PC, is PC Game Pass, which has gone from $16.49 USD to $13.99 USD. PC Game Pass now becomes the de facto least expensive way to experience not only the biggest draw of the service, day-one games, but also a tier that is even cheaper than Xbox Game Pass Premium, which costs $14.99 USD.
It also includes games that are not available on console. Although it is missing the Xbox Cloud aspect, which the other two aforementioned tiers do have, you could say that PC Game Pass makes the service live up to its old adage of being “the best deal in gaming” once again. Aside from the most budget-friendly indie titles, such as the recent day-one launch game Vampire Crawlers: Turbo Wildcard at $9.99 USD, PC Game Pass is less expensive than a majority of the indie titles that come into the service, let alone the much pricier AA and AAA games.
But What About Call of Duty?
Considering the astronomical amount of money that Microsoft is valued at, it is easy to say that the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate could have been lowered without removing anything. In reality, this decision is just as much about protecting the brand power of Call of Duty as it is about making Game Pass more affordable.
There was a report from Bloomberg in October 2025 that the company lost out on $300 million in Call of Duty sales in 2024 from Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 being included in the service. One of the best COD games in years brought players in and got established subscribers to try the game, but it did not keep enough people subscribed to justify the giant revenue loss.
That led to the unsavory price increase arriving almost in conjunction with the then-upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 releasing day one into Game Pass in November 2025. Unfortunately, this COD was not only heavily maligned by both critics and players, but it also faced major competition from EA’s Battlefield 6 and Embark’s Arc Raiders. This culminated in Black Ops 7 finishing in fifth place on the 2025 yearly sales chart, compared to Black Ops 6’s first-place finish in 2024.
Let’s face it, Microsoft cannot take a wait-and-see approach with the heavily rumored Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. They have to take preemptive action to ensure that what happened to Black Ops 7 is only a one-year fall from grace and not a permanent decline.
First and foremost, the game has to be great. But the easiest way to make sure nothing gets in the way of its sales potential is to remove it from a service that gives too many players the opportunity to try the game and then never touch it again. Sure, there are many people who buy the game at full retail price and do the same thing, but at least they paid $70 upfront for that luxury.
The newest COD release will still come to the service, albeit one year later, and the COD games already on the service will remain there too. Perhaps this finally leads to the older COD games coming to Game Pass in quick succession.
The reality is that Call of Duty is a one-of-one type of game, similar to yearly sports titles or an uber-successful live service game. Its prestige must be protected, and in reality, it may have done more to hurt Xbox Game Pass than actually help it.
Phil Spencer’s idea with obtaining Call of Duty was a “Field of Dreams” type of move, hoping that its addition would attract millions to the service and keep them subscribed consistently as Xbox built up the rest of the portfolio around it. Instead, more people just bought it on PlayStation, and Call of Duty became just another first-party game added to Game Pass.
Does This Create a Slippery Slope for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate?
Detractors of the decision to remove Call of Duty have said this opens up the proverbial “can of worms.” What would prevent Xbox decision-makers from suddenly doing the same with other “big games” too?
Although I do think that is a bit of an alarmist take, there is potential for it to happen down the line. But it likely would not be any time soon. Even if one of the major titles planned for 2026 were to be delayed into 2027, there is really nothing we currently know about that even approaches the level of a Call of Duty.
The only game currently in development that may approach COD’s level is The Elder Scrolls VI, and that is so far down the road that we have no idea what the video game landscape will look like in 2028 or beyond.
What’s Next For Xbox Game Pass?
So where do Asha, Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty, and the rest of the team go from here? The one word that has remained a theme in each version of this announcement, whether in the leaked memo above or the one that appears on Xbox Wire, is flexible. Anything and everything is on the table.
Asha herself already announced that Xbox has partnered with Discord, and then a leak reported on by The Verge unveiled Xbox Game Pass: Starter Edition. With this, Discord Nitro subscribers would gain access to a set of 50 games, the same amount as the current XGP Essential tier, along with 10 hours of Xbox Cloud streaming. However, it would not include online multiplayer.
This is nice, and maybe it gets some Discord Nitro users to give the service a whirl. But if the Xbox CEO is going to use the word flexible, could this mean that a “Build Your Own” Game Pass is in the cards?
The biggest complaint to come out of this entire situation is, “Why does the service have to lose a first-party game when there are other things worth dropping instead?” It is a valid question. Understandably, removing other services such as Fortnite Crew, EA Play, or Ubisoft+ Classics may involve tearing down preexisting deals and ruffling feathers with established partners.
However, does this open the door for a cable-style add-on system where Game Pass starts at $10 with the Essential tier, and then everything else is optional?
Do you want more games? Hit the catalog button. Do you need Xbox Cloud for streaming on a TV or phone? Select that too. Would there be a way to only have day-one games without the back catalog, essentially making your own PC Game Pass for console? Do you only want EA Play, but not Fortnite Crew or Ubisoft+ Classics?
This is obviously a fantasy draft scenario, but evolving Game Pass to the point where each person can tailor it to their specific needs may be the best way to make it stick for those who just want to play games without a bunch of bloat. Personally, I’d be super excited for a third-party-only, or basically an indie pass-style, day-one games tier.
Finally, the one thing that has been teased and even tested but has not come to fruition is the Family Plan. This needs to be implemented. Understandably, there are bigger logistics for Microsoft compared to what Nintendo faces, since Nintendo Switch Online really only includes first-party DLC or retro games. But whatever the holdup is, it is something that has to be figured out and brought into Game Pass.
More than any other service, because of what Game Pass offers, it is built to be shared. Obviously, Xbox will have to figure out a way to prevent it from being abused, and this may be the biggest reason why it has not materialized yet. But this is on Asha and the team to put out there.
Are There More Changes Coming For Xbox?
Asha Sharma’s first 60 days have led to some small wins, such as a long-awaited retooling of Xbox Achievements, giving Xbox players the option to disable Quick Resume on individual games, bringing back Xbox FanFest, removing the confusing “This is an Xbox” marketing campaign, and even creating a fan feedback team to help make sure Xbox is listening to players.
But the task ahead is still a tough one, with many major and minor decisions required.
In a very long team message sent out to employees on Thursday, simply titled “We Are Xbox,” Asha Sharma and Matt Booty delivered their manifesto for how to bring Xbox back to prominence. They detailed plans around four core tenets: hardware, content, experience, and services.
Now that a major decision has been made on the services side, and with new hardware coming within a year or two, Xbox gamers are left wondering whether anything will change regarding the current consoles and whether Xbox may consider going back to exclusivity.
Generation 9 Is Still Important For Xbox
The previous regime seemed to be done with the Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X, ushering in the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X handhelds as the new way forward. They touted that the “Fullscreen Experience” would be the future of Xbox, where your Steam library could sit alongside your Xbox on PC library and the machine could run both with no problem.
All that mattered to Phil and Sarah was that you were still within the ecosystem, even if it meant skipping the Microsoft Store altogether to make game purchases. This same concept was then supposed to translate to the next Xbox console, currently known as Project Helix.
If Asha and company want the next-gen Xbox to have any kind of shot at not being in dead last from day one, the most impactful changes have to happen before Project Helix releases. Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X should be emphasized, and it is great to hear that updates for the consoles will be happening more frequently.
Listening to not only players but also developers in making Project Helix as dev-friendly as possible is wonderful. But none of this matters without setting expectations. Sharma said in the same team message that their new north star is daily active players. The focus is on who is playing every day in the ecosystem and how to make Xbox the best place for them first before focusing so much on growth elsewhere.
Asha and Matt Booty also had an explainer interview with Stephen Totilo of Game File, and in that great piece, she brings up the subject of affordability. She stated that while she cannot make any promises due to the extravagant circumstances currently happening in the world, there is a goal to have flexible pricing.
However, the best way to show that Xbox is serious about console is by figuring out how to lower prices on the Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X. 2026 promises to be a year full of first-party hits from its most historic franchises, and even a $50 decrease on both consoles would put them in better standing.
So, Are They Going Back to Exclusives?
Regardless of how much we’d all like for every game to be available on everything, the reality is that console exclusives are king. Nintendo literally wrote the playbook on how to get the most out of them since the NES. By all accounts, Sony has made the behind-closed-doors decision to stop porting its single-player games to PC, and here’s Xbox, which cannot even set a strict timeline for when first-party games appear on what are supposed to be rival video game devices.
Sharma and Booty’s response to this is that exclusivity is being reevaluated. Sharma further stated that they will take a data-driven approach and make sure there is thought put into the decision.
She is not wrong, because Xbox is in a weird situation. It is a major video game publisher that also has to answer to a console base. A decision too far in one direction can risk alienating the other. So, a return to total exclusivity is most likely off the table, but establishing a firm timing window may still give Xbox a leg up on Nintendo and PlayStation.
Could a one-year exclusivity window be just long enough for someone to consider pulling the trigger on Project Helix instead of the PlayStation 6? It might make some gamers actually think about it if the only place they can play The Elder Scrolls VI for an entire year is either on PC or Xbox.
What About Xbox And PC Gaming?
Speaking of PC, perhaps the biggest decision to be made is how Xbox grows in the PC space. One obvious way is to fix the Xbox app on PC so that it generally works better than it currently does. But aside from that, Xbox has to decide if it is going to remain friendly with Steam or go the PlayStation route and put up a wall.
The issue is that PC users are extremely patient and do not fall into FOMO the way console-only players might. In an ideal world, one year of exclusivity would mean keeping games off Steam as well, but that is basically the equivalent of sending a game out to die in the PC space. Even with Play Anywhere, PC players love Steam, and no amount of free games will move them off the platform. Just ask Tim Sweeney.
However, the previous regime’s idea of allowing gamers full access to other PC storefronts on the next Xbox console may prove detrimental. It is one thing to allow players to access their already-purchased libraries and let them play those games on Project Helix, or the way they can already do this with the Xbox PC app. It is another ordeal entirely to allow gamers to be on your console and completely circumvent your store to take advantage of sales on Steam, where Xbox would earn nothing from that purchase.
Unless Microsoft and Valve come to some sort of internal agreement, or an algorithm is created that automatically price matches the same game regardless of which store you use, making the ecosystem entirely open sounds great in theory but could prove disastrous for Xbox. That is something Sharma said she would also be taking a look at because “she wasn’t around when those decisions were made.”
A New Era For Xbox
Although the June showcase seems like the perfect time to announce all of the grand plans, Xbox does not have to reveal everything there because not everything is already set in stone. They can see what happens with Forza Horizon 6 being a timed exclusive and also how Halo: Campaign Evolved performs as a day-and-date title.
Since they technically have not made a decision on Gears of War: E-Day, they could show their hand a bit and announce a more Xbox console-leaning exclusivity window. Whatever the decision winds up being, Sharma is correct in stating that it has to be made with a plan in place and not just as something reactionary.
The sentiment from the most ardent Xbox fans seems to be “Xbox is back,” but not so much from the powers that be, as Sharma plainly says “players are frustrated” and “we have work to do” in a lot of areas. At least they realize they are the challengers and need to be more adaptable to the ways gaming is changing around them.
These words all read very nicely so far. Now, they have to take the correct actions to create a runway for them to become champions.
