CHI Company Investigation · Streaming · Game subscription
Xbox Game PassMicrosoft Corporation · Nasdaq: MSFT · Game subscription service
Conclusion: Increasing extraction · Mechanism: subscription architecture · No score assigned
Microsoft didn’t just raise Game Pass prices. It changed what the price buys.
Microsoft spent years teaching customers that Game Pass meant first-party games on day one. In 2024 it stopped selling the inexpensive console plan that carried that benefit to new customers, introduced a more expensive mid-tier without it, and left equivalent console access in Ultimate. Ultimate then rose 50% in one step before Microsoft partly reversed the increase.
This page credits the years in which Game Pass got better without getting dearer, and the benefits that have since moved to cheaper tiers. The investigation covers Game Pass only, not Microsoft as a whole; the company-wide assessment is on the Microsoft page.
● Estimated read 12 minThe key comparison
The cheapest console plan a customer can buy with day-one first-party games
Same benefit, measured for a new or lapsed console customer. US monthly prices.
Xbox Game Pass
$9.99/month- Day-one first-party games from January 2018
- The only Game Pass plan on sale
Game Pass Ultimate
$22.99/month- Day-one first-party games
- Call of Duty excluded at launch; added about a year later
- Bundled with EA Play, Fortnite Crew, Ubisoft+ Classics and more
Scope. This is the price of the cheapest plan on sale with day-one games, not what every console customer pays. Existing members of the closed Game Pass for Console plan may still renew it; Microsoft has not published what that plan includes today or what it costs (see below). Inflation is measured from the $9.99 launch price (June 2017) to August 2026; measured from January 2018 the real increase is about 70%.
Game Pass got materially better before it got materially more expensive.
CHI is not rewriting the early history. For six years Microsoft added value to Game Pass without raising any tier’s price, and the day-one proposition was its own idea.
- Jun 2017Game Pass launches at $9.99Over 100 console games for one monthly price.Microsoft document
- Jan 2018The day-one commitmentNew Microsoft Studios exclusives join on their global release date.Microsoft document
- Jun 2019Ultimate at $14.99Console Game Pass, PC Game Pass and Xbox Live Gold in one plan.Microsoft document
- 2020 – 2021More, same priceCloud gaming, EA Play and the Bethesda catalogue added to Ultimate.Value added
“Moving forward, we plan to release all new Xbox One exclusive games from Microsoft Studios into Xbox Game Pass on the same date as their global release.”Phil Spencer, Head of Gaming · Xbox Wire, 23 January 2018
Microsoft kept teaching that proposition: “20+ Day One Games with Xbox Game Pass” (2021), “Play it day one with Game Pass” for Starfield (2023), “day one with Game Pass” (2025).
Microsoft’s subscription terms never promised day-one releases to the console plan; they say titles and availability “vary over time” and features “may change or be retired”. CHI’s finding is about what Microsoft taught customers to expect, not a breach of contract.
The extraction came through the tiers.
The original plan’s price barely moved. What changed was which plan a new customer could buy, and what each plan contained.
- 2023First, modest price riseConsole plan $9.99 → $10.99. Ultimate $14.99 → $16.99.Reported statement
- 10 Jul 2024Console plan closed“Game Pass for Console will no longer be available for new members.” Ultimate rises to $19.99.Microsoft document
- 10 Sep 2024Standard launches at $14.99Adds online multiplayer. “Game Pass Standard will not include games released on day one.”Microsoft document
- ResultDay-one on console now needs Ultimate$19.99 then. $29.99 from October 2025. $22.99 today.Microsoft document
Microsoft told Standard members that day-one games “may be added to the library at a future date. This could be up to 12 months or more and will vary by title.” In October 2025, when Standard became Premium, the wording improved to Xbox-published games “within a year of their launch (excludes Call of Duty titles)”.
Microsoft did not primarily increase extraction by repeatedly raising the price of an unchanged product. It changed the subscription architecture: the inexpensive console plan carrying the defining day-one proposition was closed to new customers, the tier introduced alongside its closure omitted that benefit, and equivalent access moved to a progressively more expensive top-tier bundle.
Microsoft did not call Standard a replacement; its launch post said Standard brings together features players love about Game Pass for Console and Game Pass Core. Reading it as the Console plan’s successor is CHI’s analysis, based on the two changes being announced together.
Existing Game Pass for Console subscribers were allowed to remain on the closed plan as long as automatic renewal continued. If they lapse, they cannot rejoin: “If you cancel this subscription, you cannot resubscribe to it.” Prepaid extensions were capped at 13 months from 18 September 2024. Microsoft has not publicly documented the plan’s current game entitlements or price.
Benefits moved up. Others moved down.
The architecture change was not one-directional. Cloud gaming and PC play reached cheaper tiers, and the mid-tier wait for Xbox games gained a one-year ceiling. Day-one access, the benefit Microsoft marketed as the point of the service, moved up.
| Benefit | Earlier | Today (October 2026) | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day-one Xbox games (console) | Console plan ($9.99–$10.99) and Ultimate | Ultimate only, among console plans on sale; Premium within a year | Moved up |
| Day-one Call of Duty | Ultimate and PC Game Pass (Oct 2024 – Apr 2026) | No tier; added about a year after launch | Removed |
| Cloud gaming | Ultimate only (to Sep 2025) | Essential, Premium and Ultimate; capped at 5/10/15 hours a month from November 2026 | Down, then metered |
| PC play of the plan’s library | PC Game Pass and Ultimate | Every main tier | Broadened |
| EA Play | Ultimate and PC Game Pass | Ultimate and PC Game Pass | Unchanged |
| Mid-tier wait for Xbox games | “Up to 12 months or more” (2024) | “Within a year”, excluding Call of Duty | Improved |
| Converting prepaid time to Ultimate | Day for day at Ultimate’s launch (2019) | 45–65% of remaining time for Game Pass plans | Worse |
Scroll the table sideways →
All rows from Microsoft documents: Xbox Support, xbox.com plan pages, Xbox Wire. Intermediate conversion rates between 2019 and today were reported only by the press and are not shown.
Five years of modest steps. Then 50% in one.
US monthly price of Game Pass Ultimate. $14.99 in 2019 is about $19.60 in today’s money, so the increases through 2024 stayed close to inflation. October 2025 did not.
Today’s $22.99 is 53% above the 2019 price, or about 17% after inflation, for a larger catalogue and one fewer headline benefit.
“Game Pass Ultimate has become too expensive for too many players.”Asha Sharma, CEO, Microsoft Gaming · public post on X, 21 April 2026, announcing the price cut
Microsoft’s chief strategy officer later said Game Pass shed millions of subscribers over a few months, and an internal memo reported by the press said losses accelerated after the pricing and SKU changes. Microsoft’s last published subscriber count dates from February 2024.
Sourcing. Matthew Ball’s remark (“We shed millions of subscribers over the span of a few months”) was made on stage on 8 June 2026 and is quoted from GameSpot. The memo (“subscriber loss accelerated after the pricing and SKU changes last year”) was reported by VGC; Microsoft did not publish it. On 10 June 2026 Xbox Wire stated the service had begun growing again “after 8+ months of decline”.
The overshoot: day-one access arrived inside a bigger bundle.
What Microsoft added to Ultimate
Ubisoft+ Classics (“valued at $7.99/month per platform”). Fortnite Crew from 18 November (“an $11.99/month value”). Cloud streaming up to 1440p with the shortest waits. Rewards worth up to $100 a year.
The same day, cloud gaming and PC play were extended to the $9.99 and $14.99 tiers.
What Microsoft said about the price
“Ultimate is now priced at $29.99/month, reflecting the expanded catalog, new partner benefits, and upgraded cloud gaming experience.”
PC Game Pass rose from $11.99 to $16.49. Microsoft’s announcement did not mention PC Game Pass.
A console customer who wanted day-one games could not buy that benefit separately from the larger bundle. The third-party subscriptions were added value for customers who use them and an unrequested cost for those who do not. This is CHI’s reading; Microsoft described the change as more flexibility, choice and value.
Source: Xbox Wire, 1 October 2025 (removed from Xbox Wire; read via the Internet Archive). PC price confirmed by Xbox Wire, 21 April 2026.
The price came down. So did one of the benefits.
Ultimate cut by 23%. PC Game Pass cut from $16.49 to $13.99. Credited in full: the correction is real.
“Future Call of Duty titles won’t join Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass at launch”; they arrive “during the following holiday season (about a year later)”. Existing Call of Duty titles stay.
Microsoft announced both changes in the same post and said the change “responds to a lot of feedback”. It did not say one caused the other. CHI records this as a price cut paired with a benefit removal; it does not claim the removal paid for the cut.
Source: Xbox Wire, 21 April 2026; Xbox Support FAQ.
The chronology is economically significant. Intent is not documented.
Before the deal closed, Microsoft told regulators and a US court that Game Pass prices would not rise because of the Activision acquisition. Those statements were qualified by cause. They were not a promise never to raise prices.
“Game Pass prices will not increase as a result of the Merger…”Microsoft to the UK CMA · Response to Remedies Notice, Feb 2023, para 2.4(f)
Call of Duty on Game Pass on release day “(with no price increase for the service based on the acquisition)”Microsoft to the US District Court · FTC v. Microsoft, ECF 108, p. 20, June 2023
- Oct 2023Activision Blizzard deal closes. Ultimate costs $16.99.
- Jul 2024Ultimate rises to $19.99; the Console plan closes to new members.
- Oct 2024Black Ops 6 launches day one on Ultimate and PC Game Pass.
- Oct 2025Ultimate rises to $29.99.
- Nov 2025Black Ops 7 launches day one on Ultimate and PC Game Pass.
- Apr 2026Ultimate falls to $22.99; future Call of Duty arrives about a year after launch.
Day-one Call of Duty, the consumer benefit Microsoft cited during the acquisition, was delivered for two releases. Ultimate is 35% above its price at closing. Microsoft has never attributed any price increase to Activision or Call of Duty, and CHI does not infer that it did.
The CMA warned before the deal closed that adding Activision content could give Microsoft an incentive to raise Game Pass prices: it would “expect Microsoft to have the incentive to increase the price of Game Pass commensurate with the value enhancement”, and contemplated higher prices “for a subset of subscribers through differentiated pricing”. That does not prove intent. It does make the later tier restructuring notable.
Source: CMA Final Report, 26 April 2023, summary para 9 and para 11.253.
Game Pass did not deteriorate equally for everyone.
PC Game Pass
“New games on day one” still included, except Call of Duty. No cloud gaming; PC online multiplayer needs no subscription.
Console day-one customer
Must buy the top tier. The alternative, Premium at $14.99, waits up to a year for Xbox games.
The sharpest change falls on the console customer who values day-one games but does not need the rest of Ultimate. PC Game Pass now costs a dollar less than console Premium and includes day-one games that Premium does not. Microsoft has given no explanation for the difference.
The strongest evidence in Microsoft’s favour.
- Six years of added valuePC, cloud, EA Play and Bethesda arrived before any tier price rose.
- Close to inflation through 2024$14.99 in 2019 is about $19.60 today; the 2024 price was $19.99.
- Cloud moved downAll three console tiers gained cloud gaming in October 2025.
- PC play broadenedEvery main tier now includes PC play of its library.
- Essential still $9.99The old Gold price, now with a 50+ game library, PC play and cloud access.
- Day one is rareNeither Sony nor Nintendo puts new first-party releases into its subscription on day one.
- Reversed in seven monthsThe October 2025 price was cut in April 2026, with a public admission.
- Easy to leaveCancel online at any time; at least 30 days’ notice of price increases.
- DisclosedCatalogue rotation and add-on dependency are stated in the terms.
The Standard tier dispute, July 2024
Standard is “a degraded product” that “costs 36% more than Console Game Pass, and withholds day-one releases.”
“It is wrong to call this a ‘degraded’ version.” The Console plan lacked multiplayer, which cost $9.99 a month extra: $20.98 in total.
Microsoft’s defence is strong for customers who wanted both multiplayer and Game Pass. It is weaker for customers who primarily valued day-one games: they lost the benefit they bought the plan for and paid more for one they had not chosen.
Sources: FTC letter, 18 July 2024; Microsoft letter, 19 July 2024; Xbox subscription terms.
Cloud gaming: from “unlimited” to metered.
In October 2025 Microsoft described Essential, Premium and Ultimate as including “unlimited cloud gaming”. From November 2026 monthly limits apply, and extra playtime will be sold in the Xbox Store at prices not yet announced.
Microsoft says the change will affect 4% of Game Pass subscribers, and that “for some players the practical result is a higher cost.” It cites the cost of providing cloud gaming as usage grows.
The mechanism matters more than the scale today: an entitlement described as unlimited is becoming metered, with additional use sold separately.
Source: Xbox Wire, 3 September 2026. Reports that existing subscribers in some countries are exempt come from subscriber emails, not a Microsoft publication.
Yield from existing customers, a legacy plan wound down, one entitlement metered.
Existing-customer yield optimization
Supports · primary- Three Ultimate price increases (2023, 2024, 2025)
- Tier restructuring in 2023, 2024 and 2025
- Third-party subscriptions folded into the top tier
- Lower value when converting prepaid time
- Purchase discount converted to Rewards points
- Paid upgrades around included games
Legacy product deprioritization
Supports- Console plan closed to new members
- Lapsed members cannot rejoin
- Prepaid extension capped at 13 months
- Xbox Live Gold retired into Core
Entitlement monetization
Supports narrowly · announcedCloud gaming moves from unlimited to capped hours with paid top-ups. Microsoft expects 4% of subscribers to be affected.
SP004 (regulated pass-through) was tested and is not supported: Microsoft has not tied any Game Pass price change to an external cost.
Final CHI interpretation
INCREASING EXTRACTIONGame Pass was strongly customer-favourable for most of its early life. The shift came through segmentation rather than simple price inflation. Microsoft stopped selling the low-cost console plan that carried the service’s defining day-one proposition, introduced a higher-priced mid-tier without that benefit, and left new console customers needing Ultimate for equivalent access. Ultimate then rose 50% in one step before Microsoft partially reversed the increase.
The evidence does not support structural hostility. Benefits also moved downward, PC Game Pass remains close to its historical real price, customers can leave easily, and Microsoft reversed the 2025 overshoot. No numerical CHI, CVI or CFS score has been assigned.
For a new console customer, keeping the experience Microsoft taught Game Pass customers to expect now requires a materially more expensive tier.
For PC customers, the economics changed far less.
Sources
Original evidence, primary documents first.
Every figure and quotation on this page comes from the verified Xbox Game Pass CHI research dossier and traces to a source below. Inflation figures use the US CPI-U published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Microsoft · Xbox Wire
- Game Pass expands to new Microsoft Studios releases, 23 Jan 2018
- Game Pass Ultimate now available, 9 Jun 2019
- 20+ Day One Games with Xbox Game Pass, 13 Jun 2021
- Showcase recap: Starfield, 11 Jun 2023
- Game Pass Standard for Insiders, 20 Aug 2024
- Game Pass Standard is here, 10 Sep 2024
- Showcase recap, 8 Jun 2025
- Essential, Premium and Ultimate plans, 1 Oct 2025 (Internet Archive copy)
- Coming to Game Pass: Black Ops 7, 4 Nov 2025
- Game Pass Ultimate price update, 21 Apr 2026
- Next 100 Days, 10 Jun 2026
- Upcoming changes to Xbox Cloud Gaming, 3 Sep 2026
Microsoft · Support, terms & plans
- Xbox Support: Game Pass updates, July 2024
- Microsoft price list, July 2024
- Xbox Support: Game Pass FAQ
- Xbox Support: Game Pass conversions
- Xbox Support: subscription extension limits
- Xbox Subscription Terms & Conditions, 26 May 2026
- xbox.com: Game Pass plans; PC Game Pass
- Asha Sharma on X, 21 Apr 2026
Regulators & courts
Press · reported statements
- The Verge, 21 Jun 2023 — 2023 prices and Microsoft’s statement
- GameSpot, Jun 2026 — Matthew Ball on stage
- VGC, May 2026 — internal memo, as reported
- IGN, 6 Oct 2025 — discount replaced by Rewards points
- VGC, Sep 2026 — cloud-limit emails by country
Limits carried onto this page. Microsoft has not published the current entitlements or price of the closed Game Pass for Console plan, so this page makes no claim about them. The 2023 price change survives only in press reports of Microsoft’s statement. Conversion rates between 2019 and today were reported only by the press and are not shown. Regional prices were not re-verified and are not used. Executive remarks from internal memos are labelled as reported.
Status. Research frozen 9 October 2026. No numerical CHI, CVI or CFS score has been assigned. Re-test when cloud top-up pricing is published and after Microsoft’s next plan changes.
Reading this beside the rest of the index
The parent company has its own assessment.
Game Pass is one Microsoft subscription. The company-wide assessment covers Windows, Microsoft 365 and the rest of Microsoft’s consumer relationship.