Microsoft said Tuesday that it will lower the cost of subscriptions that include access to hundreds of video gamesafter the company's new gaming leader promised to "recommit to our core Xbox fans and players."
The flagship Game Pass Ultimate servicewhich allows gamers to download titles on PCs and Xbox consoles and stream games on mobile deviceshas been cut to $22.99 per month from $29.99Microsoft said in a blog post. The more limited PC Game Pass is now $13.99down from $16.49.
Forthcoming titles in the popular "Call of Duty" franchise will no longer be part of the two subscriptions immediately when they come out. Insteadgamers can buy the titles when they come out — the latest one goes for $69.99 — or wait until release the next holiday season and play older versions in the meantime.
The change represents an attempt to rejigger the Xbox business from Asha Sharmaa former Meta executive who replaced Phil Spencer as Microsoft's gaming chief in February.
Gaming contributed 7% of Microsoft's total revenue in the fourth quarter. The unit's revenue was down around 10% year over yearwhile the Azure cloudLinkedInMicrosoft 365 productivity offerings and Dynamics business software all grew at least 10%. Hardware sales declined 32% after Microsoft canceled the development of the two games"Everwild" and "Perfect Dark."
Revenue from Xbox content and servicesa metric that excludes hardware salescame in below internal projectionsMicrosoft's finance chiefAmy Hoodsaid on a conference call. She announced an unspecified impairment charge in the gaming businesswhich expanded in 2023 with the $75.4 billion acquisition of "Call of Duty" publisher Activision Blizzard.
Sharma told employees in a memo that Game Pass had become too expensiveThe Verge reported earlier this month. Microsoft pushed up the price of Game Pass Ultimate by $10 to $29.99 a month in October. The company said in 2024 that Game Pass had 34 million subscribers.
"Our players cover a wide breadth of geographiespreferencesand tastesso while there isn't a single model that's best for everyonethis change responds to a lot of feedback we've gotten so far," Microsoft said in Tuesday's blog post.
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