Xbox Game Pass, the current umbrella term for Xbox’s game subscription service that also includes access to online multiplayer at the base tier, is getting a price drop, just months after a recent price hike. This also affects the price of PC Game Pass subscriptions.
The recent Game Pass price hike has raised the price for the subscription service from RM20 per month to RM25. Today, the price drops back down to RM20 per month, as per the fine print on the PC Game Pass website.
For reference, when the PC Game Pass was first officially offered in Malaysia, the price started at RM15 a month.
The catch? The latest Call Of Duty games will not be available on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass at launch. Rather, they will be added a year later during the next holiday season (late in the year, Call Of Duty games tend to release between October-November of each year).
The current Call Of Duty games will still be available on Game Pass, but this means that the latest COD will always be excluded from Game Pass until one year of release, at least.
Xbox has a policy of putting all their first-party games on Game Pass. This also extends to Bethesda and Activision titles, which while not part of the Xbox Game Studios umbrella are part of Microsoft (and in turn, Xbox). Previously, all first-party titles were released on Game Pass day-1, but that has changed to only have day-one releases on the highest tier Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription (plus PC Game Pass, which has access to the same library of games under Xbox Game Pass Ultimate).
The price drop followed an internal memo of new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma remarking how Xbox Game Pass “has become too expensive.” This looks to be the first big move from the new CEO that directly affects Xbox players in the here and now.
The other big move Sharma has made is to officially announce the development of the next generation Xbox, codenamed Project Helix.