Xbox’s $300 Million Call of Duty Misfire Is Why Your Game Pass Costs More
Xbox Game Pass just hit your wallet harder: on Oct. 1, Microsoft raised prices across the board, with the Ultimate tier jumping 50% to $30 a month — and you can likely thank Call of Duty for it.
Xbox just made Game Pass a lot pricier, and yeah, it sure looks like Call of Duty is the reason we are footing the bill. If you woke up on October 1 and your subscription suddenly jumped, that is not your imagination. Microsoft rolled out new prices, and the top Ultimate tier is now $30 a month — a 50% bump. Why? Because putting one of the biggest games on Earth into an all-you-can-play buffet costs real money when people stop buying the entree.
The Call of Duty math (and why it hurts)
When Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard in 2023, the dream was obvious: load Game Pass with megabrands like Call of Duty and watch subscriptions explode. In October 2024, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 became the first CoD to hit Game Pass on day one. Millions signed up. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella even crowed about the launch after the fact.
It was "the most successful launch for the franchise in its history."
The catch: success on a subscription doesn’t equal success at the register. Bloomberg reports Microsoft lost more than $300 million in console and PC sales of Black Ops 6 in 2024 by putting it on Game Pass day one. Meanwhile, IGN says 82% of the game’s retail sales went to PlayStation, not Xbox. Translation: Xbox and PC players took the cheaper route — subscribe for a month, play CoD, move on — instead of buying the game outright. Shocker: when you make your $70 juggernaut effectively $15 for a month, fewer people buy it.
Analysts say the strategy that was supposed to supercharge Game Pass ended up cannibalizing one of Xbox’s most reliable moneymakers. And here’s the inside baseball bit: according to analyst Joost Van Dreunen, the post-Activision subscriber boom that Microsoft hoped for didn’t arrive, and the cost of running the service isn’t lining up with the old pricing. Toss in another subtle side effect — players who don’t own a game tend to spend less on in-game extras — and the math gets worse.
So why the price hike now?
Timing is everything. By the time Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 lands on November 14, everyone will be on the new rates. If you want day-one access to Xbox’s newest releases — including CoD — Microsoft is funneling you to the $30 Ultimate tier. This is them rebalancing the equation after that Black Ops 6 experiment torched straight-up sales revenue.
The key beats
- October 1: Microsoft raises Game Pass prices; Ultimate is now $30/month (a 50% increase).
- Bloomberg says day-one Game Pass for Black Ops 6 cost Xbox over $300 million in lost console/PC sales in 2024.
- IGN reports 82% of Black Ops 6 retail sales were on PlayStation.
- Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in 2023 to feed Game Pass with franchises like CoD.
- Black Ops 6 hit Game Pass on day one in October 2024; Satya Nadella called it the franchise’s most successful launch.
- Microsoft is steering day-one access to the $30 Ultimate tier ahead of Black Ops 7 on November 14.
- Upcoming day-one titles on the service include Ninja Gaiden 4, The Outer Worlds 2, and Black Ops 7.
Players are not thrilled
Right after the price change hit, so many people rushed to cancel that Xbox’s cancellation system briefly buckled. The vibe online has been... pointed. One comment summed up a lot of the mood:
"They are about to lose more than that in Gamepass cancellations... I spent $240 on Gamepass ultimate last year, I’m only gonna buy BO7 if at all for $70... I’m not buying the other games in Gamepass that I played as a convenience, Gamepass was only worth it because cod+$10 online..."
Microsoft, for its part, insists the higher price buys better value, and it is loading day-one releases to make that argument. The question is whether enough people stick around at $30 for that to work.
What this really tells us about Xbox’s plan
This is the subscription paradox in plain sight: the bigger the game, the more it props up the service — and the more it undermines full-price sales. If subscribers don’t grow fast enough to cover that gap (and the server bills), something has to give. This month, that something is your monthly fee.
Are you keeping Ultimate for day-one CoD and the other releases, or jumping off the carousel and buying games piecemeal? I’m genuinely curious where you land on this one.