Microsoft Cuts Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to $22.99 and Pulls Future Call of Duty From Day One in First Major Move Under Asha Sharma

Overview

Microsoft cut the price of its top Xbox subscription tiers on April 21, 2026. According to the official Xbox Wire announcement, Game Pass Ultimate dropped from $29.99 to $22.99 per month, and PC Game Pass dropped from $16.49 to $13.99 per month, with the changes taking effect immediately and applying to existing subscribers on their next billing cycle. The reduction came paired with a significant trade-off: future Call of Duty releases will no longer arrive on Game Pass at launch.

The move is the first major business decision under new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma, who took over in February following the retirement of longtime Xbox boss Phil Spencer, as previously reported.

What We Know

The Xbox announcement frames the cut as a response to player feedback, stating that “there isn’t a single model that’s best for everyone” but that the change “responds to a lot of feedback we’ve gotten so far,” according to Xbox Wire. The Ultimate cut amounts to a $7-per-month reduction, or roughly 23%, while the PC tier falls by $2.50, or about 15%, as detailed by 9to5Google.

The Call of Duty change is the most consequential structural shift. Per the Xbox Wire post, future Call of Duty titles will no longer launch day-one on Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass; they will instead be added approximately one year after release, during the holiday season following launch. Existing Call of Duty titles already in the library remain available. Xbox Wire said Ultimate subscribers retain access to hundreds of games, online multiplayer, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and day-one releases for other titles.

The pricing reversal had been signaled internally before the public announcement. In a leaked memo to Xbox staff, reported by Engadget on April 13, 2026, Sharma told employees that “Game Pass is central to gaming value on Xbox. It’s also clear that the current model isn’t the final one.” She added that “short term, Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation” and that “long term, we will evolve Game Pass into a more flexible system which will take time to test and learn around,” according to Engadget.

The new pricing does not return Game Pass to its pre-hike levels. Engadget noted that Microsoft has raised Game Pass prices twice within 15 months, leaving subscribers paying more than they were before that sequence of increases despite the April reversal.

What We Don’t Know

Microsoft has not disclosed how subscriber counts shifted between the prior price increases and the April 2026 reversal, nor has it published numbers indicating how many users moved between Game Pass tiers. The company also has not specified whether the Call of Duty deferral applies only to mainline annual releases or extends to other Activision-published titles. Sharma’s memo language suggested broader changes are under study, but no further structural changes — such as a new first-party-only tier — were confirmed in the April 21 announcement.

The long-term financial impact on Microsoft’s gaming segment is also unclear. Removing Call of Duty from day-one Game Pass access preserves the option for full-price retail and digital sales of new entries, which could offset some of the per-subscriber revenue lost to the price cut. Whether the combined effect grows or shrinks Game Pass’s total contribution to gaming revenue will not be visible until Microsoft’s next earnings disclosures.

Context

The reduction is the first concrete consumer-facing action of Sharma’s tenure and aligns with the concerns she expressed internally a week earlier. By cutting prices while pulling back the day-one Call of Duty perk that had accompanied the previous higher Ultimate tier, Microsoft is effectively unbundling its most expensive subscription rather than expanding it further. Engadget noted that licensing costs for premium Activision titles were among the cost pressures cited inside Microsoft.