Dropping Game Pass's Price Is a Great First Step to Fixing Xbox's Problems

Holy sh-t, new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma is not messing around!

A mere two months after taking over the Xbox business from the now-retired Phil Spencer, the self-admitted gaming outsider is showing no fear in upending the apple cart, slashing Xbox Game Pass Ultimate’s $30 per month price tag – a figure that honestly felt like a middle finger when Microsoft raised the price by 50% last October – down to $23, and bringing PC Game Pass down from $16.49 to $14. I honestly can’t think of a single other instance where another major streaming service – be it in gaming or entertainment – has actually lowered the monthly price at all, let alone by this much, at least not without introducing a significant catch like an ad-supported tier. And I suppose that’s what’s happened here too, in a sense, as new Call of Duty games will no longer be available to play on day one in any Game Pass tier, and they will instead be added in a year later.

According to my math, 12 months of Game Pass Ultimate at $23 plus a $70 day-one copy of Call of Duty still comes out to $14 less than 12 months of an all-inclusive Ultimate at $30. So no matter how you slice it, this is a win for gamers, and it rights a wrong that never should’ve happened in the first place. But it did. And we got mad – justifiably so. It was a tone-deaf move from a $3 trillion market-cap company in a time when inflation was on the rise and the cost of basic needs – groceries, gas, rent, etc. – were on the rise. Sure, gaming is and always was a luxury, but to go straight from $20 per month to $30 for Game Pass Ultimate felt like a slap in the face to loyal Xbox gamers who continue to stick around when Microsoft – by way of virtually abandoning exclusivity and putting most of its first-party games on PlayStation 5 – gives them every reason not to.

So first, let me stop and give Sharma some well-deserved flowers. She came in having no background in video games, and her recent professional history included working with AI. So gamers were, for those two reasons, understandably skeptical about her chances of getting Xbox back on a smooth track in the middle of a console generation that’s been marred by repeated layoffs, studio closures, project cancellations, two hardware price increases in the same year in 2025, and the aforementioned gut punch of a Game Pass Ultimate price hike.

The fact that she’s already come in and, first, hurled the unpopular “This is an Xbox” marketing campaign in the trash, and second and more importantly, made this substantial Xbox Game Pass Ultimate price cut suggests that she regards nothing the previous administration did as sacred and isn’t afraid to make bold changes. And she deserves credit for that. Not to mention it’s also a heck of a way to quickly start to earn the trust of the Xbox and larger gaming community with actions rather than just words. Will we love every move she makes? I highly doubt it; no executive at any company bats 1.000, and she’s a human being just like the rest of us. But she’s off to as great a start as any of us could’ve reasonably hoped.

So now what? Unfortunately the Game Pass room in the House of Xbox is not the only one in need of maintenance. Although before I move on, even in the face of this welcome price reduction on the Ultimate tier, I wouldn’t stop the construction on Game Pass there. And apparently neither is Sharma, who said in a leaked memo to the Xbox team recently that “Long term, we will evolve Game Pass into a more flexible system which will take time to test and learn around.” A more flexible system sounds great because it’d give gamers more options, which is always welcome. Another recent report suggested that Sharma is toying with the idea of offering a tier that would only include first-party games, which sounds great if it’s priced correctly (maybe $15 per month if it includes day-one releases?).

I’d like to again float my idea of a voucher/reward system for the middle, $15-per-month tier currently called Xbox Game Pass Premium, which doesn’t include day-one new releases. Even the new $23 monthly price for Ultimate is still 50% higher than $15, so I’d like to see Microsoft offer a voucher system for Premium that rewards you with one day-one new-release download for every three months (i.e. quarter) you subscribe to the service. And I’d have them be able to accrue and roll over. Meaning, if you subscribe for the first nine months of the year and then October rolls around and all of the big games start coming out, you’ve got yourself three new first-party games you can download during the holiday season. Applied to this year, it would mean if your willpower was strong enough to keep your vouchers unused on your account (even as Forza Horizon 6 drops next month), you’d then be able to grab Fable, Gears of War: E-Day, and a third game on their respective launch days with your Premium account. Doing this rewards loyalty and still leaves plenty of reasons to jump up to Ultimate if it’s in your budget.

What else needs addressing in Xbox’s house? For me there are two other key topics that deserve attention: hardware and exclusivity. Let’s start with the first of those, because hardware is a problem for Microsoft in two ways. First, there’s the obvious one: price. To preface this, everything I’m about to say applies to Sony as well since the PS5 is the same price as the Series X, but we’re talking about Xbox here, so PlayStation’s leadership should take notes too. Anyway, $600 consoles are a big f—ing problem! For Xbox, for Sony, and for the entire industry. I made a video all about that you can go check out.

Anyway, if Sharma has the power to cut Game Pass prices by a meaningful amount, she can do the same with hardware too. Yes, I realize that services have wholly different costs than hardware does, and the latter is more impacted by external forces, but even the Xbox Series S – the formerly affordable entry point into this generation of Xbox gaming – is priced too high for many households to afford. Sharma shouldn’t really care what Sony is or isn’t doing with its hardware prices at this stage, but even if she did, she should care that the numbers unequivocally say that when the PS5 and Series X are both the same prices, gamers are choosing the PS5 by a huge margin. And bundles aren’t going to fix it. Only lowering the bottom-line cost to consumers is going to accomplish that. So if Sharma is in this for the long haul, it’s time for Microsoft to get the 1TB Xbox Series X digital version down to $500 and the 512GB Series S back to $300. No excuses. Sharma herself said in her introductory message to Xbox staff and community that Xbox must “celebrate [its] roots” with “a renewed commitment to Xbox starting with console, which has shaped who we are.” Restoring the prices from the beginning of this console generation – this is the part where I remind you that in any other console generation, the Series X would be down to $400 by now and the Series S would be $200 – is how she can put those words into action.

The second fix Xbox still needs is exclusivity, and specifically defining what that means for Xbox. We’ve always known what it means for Nintendo; it’s always been clear that the only place to play Nintendo games is on Nintendo consoles (shout-out to the commenter who is inevitably going to mention The Legend of Zelda games for the CD-i). Sony is doing the same thing, reportedly ending its PC publishing experiments and making PlayStation consoles the sole place to experience Sony’s first-party games. But Microsoft has been so inconsistent with its publishing strategy that there doesn’t seem to be any clear definition of exclusivity anymore. Some games come to PS5 on day one (like the upcoming remake, Halo: Campaign Evolved). Some show up months later (like the stellar Indiana Jones and the Great Circle). Others find their way to PlayStation a year later (like South of Midnight and Avowed). Case in point: Xbox’s most consistently awesome first-party studio, Playground Games, has two games due out this year: one is going to be exclusive to Xbox for some number of months this year (Forza Horizon 6), and the other will ship day-and-date on PS5 (Fable). The only consistency with Xbox exclusivity is that every first-party game hits PC on day one (which is a good thing, considering that Microsoft’s next console is also a PC). Sharma should lay down the law here and define what exclusive means for Xbox and whether Xbox is going to have exclusives at all. And since she has already said she wants to get back to a renewed commitment to console, it seems like the best path back to that is for every Xbox Studios game to show up on Xbox and PC on day one, and then hit PlayStation and/or Nintendo platforms one year later. No exceptions.

Here’s my final point: you might write off my proposed fixes as fan wishcasting. And at most points in gaming history, you’d probably be proven right. But in making such a bold change to try and fix Xbox Game Pass Ultimate’s self-inflicted pricing wound in just Sharma’s second month on the job, it tells me that she’s not afraid to roll up her sleeves to get to the root of the problems her division faces. Gaming is better off with a strong and healthy Xbox in it, and here’s hoping Sharma keeps the big changes coming.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our semi-retired interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.