Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma has acknowledged what players have been saying for months, which is that the Xbox Game Pass costs too much, and a change could be coming soon.
The newly appointed Xbox chief has privately admitted to employees that the subscription service has become too expensive and that something needs to be done about it.
The admission came through an internal memo obtained by The Verge, where Sharma laid out her thoughts on the state of Game Pass and where it’s headed.
What Asha Sharma actually said about current Xbox Game Pass pricing
In the memo, Sharma told employees that Game Pass needs a “better value equation” in the short term, and that the long-term plan is to move the service toward a more flexible model. However, she was clear that it would take time to figure out.
No immediate price drops were promised, but the fact that she’s flagging this internally suggests that Microsoft is taking the feedback seriously.
To understand why this is a big deal, it helps to go back to last year when Microsoft bumped the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to $29.99 per month, a whopping 50 percent jump from its earlier pricing.
At the time, the company tried to justify it with a range of upgrades across its subscription tiers, but the bump clearly didn’t sit well with players.
A significant chunk of that cost increase traces back to one decision, which was adding Call of Duty to Game Pass. Microsoft brought the franchise into the subscription in the summer of 2024 following its acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
Could Call of Duty get pulled from Xbox Game Pass?
Windows Central’s Jez Corden has hinted that Microsoft might actually be considering removing Call of Duty from Game Pass entirely. Speaking on the XB2 podcast, Corden suggested that if that happens, it would start to expose some of the underlying issues in the strategy Microsoft had built around the Activision acquisition.
Right now, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate sits at $29.99 per month, with Essential at $9.95 and Premium at $14.95. For a lot of players, that top tier won’t feel worth it anymore, especially if Call of Duty, which was one of the reasons for the hike, ends up being reversed.
What ultimately happens with the Game Pass pricing remains to be seen, but the conversation has clearly started behind closed doors.
