Maybe they can give CoD a 2 year release window, for 2 years keep doing season and adding new stuff, it's cheaper, and brings in more money from DLC.

First year buyers pay $70 like normal, after that year, anyone not willing to buy it can get it on GP, and if they retain some players they can boost the player base and spend money on DLC.

.

This was a smart first move for the CEO. Happy for the price drop, especially since I don’t care for COD.

Huge W. Good move. Finally something went down in price this generation!

Would have liked it to be $20 for Ultimate but any price drop is better than none. Still a great value and service for my needs.

Hoping that all big single player games like the next Wolfenstien game are not available for free on Gamepass day 1. Single player big budget games needs the sales to cover the expensive cost of developing these games .

They realized how much money is lost on games not being bought. Call of duty prints money and you gave it away on a sub. Especially for something that was going to sell anyway. If you ask me, Forza Horizon, Gears, Halo, and other flagship games shouldn’t be on there. It should be for games that may struggle with sales or don’t have that impulse buy attraction. Microsoft would make more money and gamespass wouldn’t have to go up to offset losses.
I am personally over call of duty and have been for years. Having a lower price and excluding it is a great deal for me. Now if they’d give a year bundle with a discounted cost….

Edit** after seeing some of the comments, they basically realized what Sony already did. Day one games HURT financially when it’s a big game that sells. That’s why PlayStation plus does games coming to the service AFTER they had their sales run. Like Spider-man 2 and god of War 2 for example. It’s a nice thing, having day one games, but ultimately paying that high monthly sub to KEEP playing was you paying for games and continuing to pay past the worth of the game. Buying simply saves you in the long run. It’s why I bought Hollow Knight 2 for example rather than play it on games pass. Not enough interesting games on there and I don’t have to pay to keep playing. My gamespass has been cancelled since the price increase and I felt no pain because I buy my games. Otherwise I’d have to keep paying JUST to be able to play something.

I would like a tier without Ubisoft + and EA Play. I play games from those two publishers once in a blue moon.

if you wait a month or two it will probably be half price, with call of duty included

phil needs to rehire himself

This is a good move at the end of the day.

Now it’s at least worth considering but still too pricey to stay subscribed rather than subscribe one month at a time when a big game releases.

I guess losing the title of best selling game of the year to BF6 last year really hurt their pride

Last paragraph “we’ll continue to listen and learn” lol why are the Xbox leadership always talking about wanting to learn? Have some confidence man, I remember Phil Spencer always mentioning he’s going to try to keep learning in his answers during his interviews.

People are dumb. It was 19.99 July 2024. It went to 29.99 Oct 2025. Now it’s 22.99 and somehow that’s a win?! That’s $275.88 a year and a year of PS Plus Premium is $160.

Anybody who thinks this is a win needs to see a doctor.

Oh btw - not charging $29.99 mean less revenue/profit. You wanna know how Microsoft Helix will make up that difference? Enjoy the flood of ADS you’re about to see in your console. Morons.

Clever.

How do you manage – ideally without too much pushback from the community – to remove one of your highest-grossing IPs from a subscription service?

An IP that they bought at great expense just a few years ago and included in D1 specifically ‘to’ promote that very subscription?

I’m sure this move had been decided on for some time.

(… and another move they were able to make in the same breath: ultimately, to push through a price increase. With less content.)

“We will continue to listen and learn.”

… oh yes, of that I am absolutely certain.

lol
thats a drastic move but probably the best.

gonna make those billions back somehow

This is great news for everyone that never wanted CoD in Game Pass. We all know that anyone who wants it will buy it full price. For those that never cared for it, get a discount on the price. I think this will help Xbox keep their subscribers. Plus, most of the more recent CoD games are still having lobbies to play in.

That's cool, price drop is price drop, but wasn't ultimate PC like 10 bucks a month originally? Personally, I am not into having so many subs anymore. I had all and played practically nothing in them, the original sub of random games made "Free" Monthly was far better to me, because bare minimum I ALWAYS had access. Heck, I still have games from 360 they gave me and I don't have a sub at all anymore.

Now I left gamepass and have nothing, I think I will just stick to fewer subscriptions and just buy games as I desire.

People wanted a price drop but there was always gonna be some sort of tradeoff for it. They're not gonna keep CoD on Game Pass forever KNOWING people are gonna buy it anyway simply because it's CoD. People continue to buy it every year without questioning its quality and MS knows this.

But hey GP is cheaper... until the next price increase.

Tell me again how the multiplatform strategy was supposed to fix everything. Look at your results and compare them to Nintendo, which keeps thriving with exclusives. Your loyal fans are gone. And let’s not forget the pile of IPs you purchased only to let them rot.

The worst thing is this is down from last years numbers/expectations which was down from the previous years numbers/expectations. You think about how long “down” has been a consistent part of the communication and you realize those subscriptions are what’s holding that boat together. The price cut of gamespass is still a price raise in a string of price raises. They are trying to use players to offset the missing revenue. Now call of duty is out of gamespass, which is literally WHY they bought the company. To draw people to the subscription. They realized they missed a boatload of money and that wasn’t sustainable. Now you pay for it like you would have if they never bought the company… so why buy the company? Mind you those billions still need to be paid back. Yeah it gives you a chance to say we make the biggest FPS… but the internal conversations must be brutal at high level on topics that really matter. Like revenue. Profitability. And ROI for the shopping spree.

Is this like the 10th quarter in a row they're down 33% on hardware how is that even mathematically possible. You would think their mediocrity would Plateau