Highlights
- Microsoft is reportedly planning to make changes to Xbox Game Pass tiers.
- The move is rumored to be related to the long-awaited arrival of Call of Duty on Xbox Game Pass.
Microsoft has decided to make changes to Xbox Game Pass tiers, a well-known leaker has claimed. While the specifics of the move are currently unclear, the purported plan is said to be directly related to the Call of Duty series' upcoming Xbox Game Pass debut.
The hit shooter franchise has long been expected to reach Microsoft's subscription service. But when the company finally managed to acquire Activision Blizzard in October 2023 following a legal battle with the FTC, it said that its new subsidiary's catalog would take some time to be added to the XGP library, citing the regulatory uncertainty surrounding the deal as the main reason why it didn't start preparing for such a move ahead of time. On May 17, The Wall Street Journal reported that Call of Duty 2024 will be a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass.
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YouTuber and leaker eXtas1s promptly reacted to this bit of unofficial insight by claiming that Microsoft is planning to make some adjustments to Xbox Game Pass tiers. The supposed changes are "mainly due to Call of Duty," according to a machine translation of his May 17 tweet. While rumors of this sort always warrant a degree of skepticism, eXtas1s has a pretty consistent track record of Microsoft-related scoops, having just recently leaked the newly confirmed Xbox Game Pass debut of Lords of the Fallen. Prior to that, the YouTuber also shared images of a white and disc-less Xbox Series X, which has yet to be officially announced but is widely believed to be in the works.
This claim is far from the first indication that Microsoft may be considering major changes to its popular subscription service; an early May report from The Verge suggested that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate could be looking at another price hike soon. Microsoft supposedly started discussing such a move less than a year after it first increased the prices of all XGP tiers. The company is also said to have some concerns about how a day-one Xbox Game Pass release of the next mainline Call of Duty game will impact its revenue-making potential, as per the same source. New COD entries are consistently among the best-selling titles each year, so offering them as part of XGP subscriptions could feasibly cannibalize their sales.
Price Hikes Could Lower Call of Duty's Effect on Xbox Game Pass Growth
But overhauling subscription tiers solely due to Call of Duty could also inhibit the potential of Activision's series to reinvigorate Xbox Game Pass's declining growth. That's something that many industry watchers previously labeled as a major benefit of Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition.
Aside from price hikes, potential changes to Microsoft's subscription service also include new tiers. E.g., the company has long been rumored to be considering an ad-supported tier of Xbox Game Pass, though no such offering has materialized to date.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is the highest tier of Microsoft's flagship game subscription service that offers over 100 game titles that you can play with a single purchase, making it one of the most outstanding value propositions of the Xbox ecosystem to date.