Microsoft cuts Game Pass prices, delays new Call of Duty releases

Microsoft’s latest Game Pass reset is less about a cheaper subscription than a new rulebook for how blockbuster games are sold. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate fell to $22.99 a month and PC Game Pass to $13.99, while new Call of Duty releases will no longer arrive on day one for subscribers and are expected to show up during the following holiday season.

That is a sharp reversal from the pitch Microsoft made only months ago, when it raised Game Pass Ultimate to $29.99 a month on October 1, 2025 and said the tier included more than 400 games and 75 day-one releases. Microsoft had already begun pulling back in September 2024, when it introduced Game Pass Standard without first-party day-one launches and ended Game Pass for Console. The latest move, framed by CNBC as a strategic shift under new gaming leader Asha Sharma, suggests Microsoft is now more focused on balancing retention, margins and launch control than on using Game Pass as a pure day-one weapon.

For Nintendo employees, the signal matters well beyond Xbox. Platform teams, eShop planners and business-development staff have to read where consumers are being trained to expect value, and where they are not. Microsoft is now saying current Call of Duty titles remain in Game Pass, but the newest installment will be held back until the following holiday season. That gives Microsoft a way to keep the subscription stocked with marquee software without giving away the biggest annual shooter at the moment of maximum sales pressure.

The comparison with Nintendo is telling. Nintendo Switch Online costs $19.99 a year for an individual membership in the U.S., $34.99 for a family membership, $49.99 for Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack individual and $79.99 for the family version. Nintendo launched the service on September 18, 2018, and even its Switch 2 GameChat feature now works with any Nintendo Switch Online membership, after the no-membership welcome offer ended on March 31, 2026. Nintendo has never tried to match Game Pass on sheer breadth or day-one blockbuster access, so Microsoft’s retreat reinforces a different lesson: subscription value does not have to mean immediate access to every premium release.

That matters inside Nintendo’s own planning rooms. If Microsoft is willing to delay Call of Duty to protect the economics of a subscription, then launch timing, catalog strategy and first-party exclusives remain powerful levers, not relics of an older market. For Nintendo, where franchise legacy and quality-first development still shape everything from platform policy to publishing calendars, the bigger takeaway is that rivals are still rewriting the subscription playbook in real time. Whoever can make its premium offerings feel indispensable without over-discounting them will have the stronger hand.