Microsoft has cut the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate from $29.99 to $22.99 per month, effective April 21, 2026. PC Game Pass also drops, from $16.49 to $13.99 per month. Both cuts take effect immediately on Xbox.com for new sign-ups. Existing subscribers will see the lower price on their next billing date from April 22 onwards.
Game Pass Essential at $9.99 per month and Game Pass Premium at $14.99 per month are not changing.
The Trade-Off: No Call of Duty at Launch
The price drop comes with one significant change. Microsoft will no longer offer new Call of Duty games on Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass on day one. Instead, new titles will join the subscription during the following holiday season, roughly a year after release. Existing Call of Duty games already in the Game Pass library will stay available.
Game Pass Essential and Game Pass Premium do not include day-one new releases and are not affected by this change.
In its own statement, Activision said: “Game Pass continues to be an awesome place for players to discover games, including Call of Duty.”
Why Microsoft Made the Change
Asha Sharma, a former Meta executive who replaced Phil Spencer as Microsoft’s gaming chief in February, told employees in a memo that Game Pass had become too expensive. In a post on X, Sharma acknowledged that Game Pass Ultimate had “become too expensive for too many players.”
Microsoft said in a blog post: “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.”
The price cut comes six months after Microsoft raised the top Game Pass tier by 50% to $29.99 per month in October 2025. Tuesday’s cut does not fully reverse that increase.
Call of Duty Sales Were Hit Hard
Removing new Call of Duty titles from day-one access is not just about pricing. Game Pass appeared to impact premium sales of last year’s title, Black Ops 7, significantly, with launch sales down more than 60% in some markets. In the US, Black Ops 7 was the fifth best-selling game of 2025, the lowest placement for a Call of Duty game in nearly 20 years.
Revenue from Xbox content and services came in below internal projections, according to Microsoft’s finance chief Amy Hood. Hood also announced an unspecified impairment charge in the gaming business. Microsoft expanded the gaming division in 2023 with the $75.4 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the publisher behind Call of Duty.