Last week we saw a fresh report from the Wall Street Journal on Microsoft bringing brand-new Call of Duty games to Xbox Game Pass, and some follow-up rumours have circulated over the weekend suggesting that the service will make "changes" in order for this to happen.
Well-known insiders Shinobi602 and eXtas1s have both commented on this in recent days. First off, in response to a suggestion on the Reset Era forum about potential new Game Pass tiers, Shinobi simply responded with "There will be changes, yes." but didn't elaborate further on their comment.
Then, not long after that, eXtas1s took to Twitter to discuss an "important update" on Microsoft's next move. Roughly translated, the insider claims that they "can assure you that changes are coming to the Xbox Game Pass Tiers mainly due to Call Of Duty", and that they "hope to report back soon" on these changes.
For now of course these are both rumours, with Microsoft yet to make any formal announcements on changes to Xbox Game Pass. Xbox President Sarah Bond did confirm that the team still plans to bring all of its games "across the whole slate" to the subscription service, but made no mention of Call of Duty or any potential price changes.
We're hoping to get clarification on this in and around the Xbox Games Showcase next month, where Microsoft will lift the lid on this year's Call of Duty game for the first time as owners of the franchise. For now, sit tight while we await the big show on June 9.
What do you think could happen here? Maybe a new Game Pass tier? Tell us what you think down below.
Comments 55
Who could ever have foreseen this?
Didn't they promise not to do this?
Surprise.
@ANJB78 yeah they did promise in court but everyone knew that was a lie
I think they're going to introduce a price hike for the ultimate tier at least, and then a mid tier where you get the "Day 1" releases after a certain amount of time.
But time will tell 👍👍
Stop that ***** thats only rumors and peoples cannot afford another rise in gamepass price.
What about people who don’t care for CoD? This isn’t fair on them having to be forced to pay more for Game Pass if it does indeed get a price hike. I’ll be downloading it myself to jump into a match now and again but I don’t think one franchise justifies increasing the price of a subscription service.
If they keep the current pricing as is and introduce a more expensive tier with day one Call of Duty releases for the those that are interested, it could work( and I and many like me wouldn't be affected)😁.
It's really the only way to avoid a backlash and apply the same treatment to COD as the rest of XGS output. Let's see....
This would be another big mistake if true.
In canada after taxes gamepass cost 19.53$ a month so if theres a rise it will be harder to convince peoples in canada to stay on the service,i personally barely play the games availaible on gamepass nothing catch my eyes i pay in the butter for now but tomorrow hellblade 2 will worth being on gamepass.
It will be an increase of €2-€3 a month. Once again, personally this does not affect me as I need to work about 2 hours a month to afford game pass. Not the end of the world and still crazy amount of savings made through game pass. I don't play COD but having access to the campaigns or a quick round of zombies, I'd be up for a small increase. A bonus if nothing changes. Only time will tell and just enjoying gaming today, tomorrow or whenever.
let's see the future i personally hate rise in gamepass i don't see the benefit for players only taking more for less how is it a good things for consumers i see them rising the price in 2025 of 1$ but not in 2024.
I think COD might only be included in Ultimate not Standard Game Pass. While I am not a fan of that generally for COD it might be a better option than a price hike or yet another tier, which is already confusing for non-enthusiasts. It also makes some sense as MOST people who play it will want Xbox Live anyway for online. Though this would annoy standard tier subscribers.
I could see MS getting rid of the 'Game Pass console' tier and shaking things up in a similar way to PS Plus, but who knows at this stage. Curious to see whether we get more info around the COD Direct.
Hopefully it's a separate payment plan if you want the new cod day one I couldn't care about cod I'm more looking forward to CTR and spyro
I wont even pay the £12.99 ultimate is at the moment so a price hike im definitely out
I don’t understand how Xbox never knows what Xbox wants . Everything is like they throw it at a wall and see which one sticks or hits the ground first
@The-Grezzly-Bear they should have a free game pass with ads then
Potentially 3 tiers?
Core (stays as is)
Standard (certain day 5 games, other stuff 3-6month behind?)
Ultimate ( everything day 5)
That’s my guess. Probably standard becomes £12 And ultimate £15.
Wouldn't be surprised if there would be an Activision GP add-on rate, so long as they bring over their entire stable of games.
Maybe console tier will include online multiplayer for Duty. It's a pretty pointless tier in its current state.
@The-Grezzly-Bear that's a good shout, I could definitely see them doing that. I feel that the Day 1 thing was great for them when they were releasing just a handful of high profile games a year but now they are looking to ramp up with the likes of COD it just doesn't look sustainable at the current price, but if they drop day ones altogether they'd lose their advantage of PS Plus
@themightyant I don't know if that would be enough to offset the cost; I admit I don't have the figures to hand but from what I gather the majority of GP subscribers are already on Ultimate
Educated guesses. I wouldn’t give any credibility to these guys.
@PsBoxSwitchOwner lol, everything Day 5. Sums up Gamepass perfectly
CoD hasn't been a 'major' seller on Xbox and Game Pass only ever offers the 'base' game for Free. CoD is also a game that often is played month after month after month.
No doubt there will be a 'Game Pass' upgrade option to get the 'Prestige' edition - maybe with the first Season Pass and extra cosmetics - maybe even some 'early access' for pre-orders too.
CoD makes so much money on Cosmetics, Season Passes, CoD Points etc - stuff that won't be 'free' on Game Pass. All you will get is the 'base' game. Maybe they will make more money on 'extras' on Xbox as more gamers are actually playing CoD on Xbox - sell 5m, that's only 5m Season Passes you can sell, get 30m in, and that's 6x more Season Passes, 6x more Cosmetic bundles etc that could be sold...
Its still being Sold on Playstation where the majority of CoD gamers play. Its also expected to come to 'more' platforms like Nintendo so that is a new avenue for Sales of both Base game and Extras.
Yes they may get more gamers in on Xbox, but a LOT of those would probably not have bought CoD for £70+. A LOT of CoD gamers will likely buy to keep their Favourite IP indefinitely and its still cheaper to buy CoD and play all year than Subscribe to Game Pass for a year to keep playing CoD.
I think CoD could make more money than if it was Sold because they get FAR more people in buying 'extras'. It will still 'sell' on Xbox/PC because some CoD gamers only play CoD and/or not interested in 'renting'. So its not as if it won't sell at all. Playstation gamers aren't going to spend £500 on a Series X just to get CoD via Game Pass instead of buying it on PS.
Game Pass went up recently - albeit by a ~$1 per person, an extra $35m+ a month or $420m a year. It would seem wrong to go up again when CoD is the type of game that requires additional spending to get the 'most/best' from it.
Massive price hike will be the end for me unfortunately
Auto-renewing month-to-month for only 10,500 reward points is a no-brainer, even if they change it up some. Game Pass can essentially be free if you are able to put in a little work every month through the Rewards program.
im so fed up with ms/xbox at this point i may take my series x to the back yard and blast it with a 12 ga slug.
It sucks that I and many others who have no intention of playing CoD will probably have to foot the bill for the game to go on GP day 1 😡🙄
@PapaGlitch But I don't think it has to "offset the cost" directly.
Similarly to how Microsoft don't have to gain back $69 billion in revenue from the ABK deal - they bought an asset that has increased Microsoft's share price instead. Likewise Game Pass is a longer term play that they need to attract subscribers to, the gains are spread over time.
COD is a great way of doing that. It could both increase the number of people on Ultimate AND increase the number of Game Pass subscribers when combined with a stacked Xmas roster with Indiana Jones, Avowed, MS Flight Sim 24, and more.
FYI Ultimate was stated to be 70-80% by the European Commission.
@TheSimulator
I'd be happy with that as long as it doesn't affect the games too much.
@PapaGlitch that's exactly what I was thinking.
Can't say I'm a fan of COD, so would be interested to see what any potential mid-tier would entail.
For me, not having "day 1" access straight away wouldn't be too big a deal. The backlog grows by the week anyway 😂
As someone who couldn't care less about CoD and will never even try one of them, it's a loss for me. Paying more for something I won't use.
We'll see. Another price increase might push me to drop it, like I dropped PS plus after their increase. Depends how they implement
Blehhh. I like Game Pass, but why would you increase the price of it because of a single title or something? I don’t have any intention to play CoD and a couple here don’t as well.
As others have said, it would make more sense if this rumored price hike was introduced with separately priced tiers, and maybe there could be a tier with CoD at a higher price, and then a tier without CoD at a lower price. I would prefer them to not increase the price of Game Pass altogether, since not only do I think it would get expensive over time (for consumers), but also because it would definitely upset some Game Pass users. But, I guess this possible price increase is just from a business point of view.
Oh Microsoft oh Microsoft
@TheSimulator That has always been Microsoft’s strategy with everything they do. They are a massive successful company but only because they can afford to be. They make a lot of mistakes with their products.
@rustyduck please post proof of this. Would be great entertainment
Based on the swirl of rumors I'm guessing XB itself still has no idea how to handle CoD. They're in a no win situation with it. They told the courts they're not raising prices for ABK. Then they raised prices, but squeezed it in just before ABK finalized so they could claim it wasn't due to ABK - PS raising prices too made them look like they were just keeping pace. Under the radar. They can't do that with this, it'll raise regulatory flags. Plus raising prices just for COD may lead to subscriber attrition anyway, and isn't what they want.
They could split it into new tiers, but then what goes into the new tier, how much does it cost, and how do they convince people to spend more for a whole year just to get CoD when they could just buy CoD for probably the same price difference?
The only realistic "out" I could see they have, is as mightyant said above just require Ultimate for CoD, which is dubious too, or, put "CoD" on all GP, day 1, same price, but structure the release so that you basically need to buy the "premium edition upgrade" for half the price of a full price copy to really make it playable for the online crowd. But if they do that it means CoD won't really bring new subscribers to GP and their growth still flatlines.
Obviously this is all rumors but if true I will be pissed off, you're making me pay more because of a game and franchise many of us don't care about 😐
@rustyduck oooh! Can I watch?🤣
if avowed is delayed into 2025 i may very well shoot my xbox for real and film it. no reason to think avowed will get delayed but the way things been going i think its possible.
Hike that price up and my Xbox will find itself a comfortable spot in a drawer.
Yeah I won’t pay any more than it already costs
@Kalele Yeah, I'm switching to Core. This is getting crazy, and at this point I don't trust Xbox.
It's already expensive to live here.
Lol at people making threats and losing their mind over rumors. Some of y'all need to calm down.
A price hike is inevitable amd I assumed would happen as soon as the AKB sale went thru. Unless you buy only 1-3 games a year GP is still a solid buy.
And Sony's top tier for full access is still more expensive than GP.
I hate call of duty, so I’d be pretty annoyed with a price hike over it.
If they increase the price for a series I dont play and don't care about them I'm cancelling
I only order gamepass when a game im interested in drops on it and cancels immediatly.
@rustyduck bingo card ready for the showcase. I'm putting down you to follow through on this, if Avowed is delayed.
Yes they need to price hike this service. So that they can continue to subsidize many games being available. Developers need to make a profit somehow and the Xbox subsidiary needs the cash to secure rights so that gamers can use GP which is great value. I don’t like it and will continue to outright support game developers as a fellow professional and buy new physical copies when possible.
As long as the price doesn’t go up, I am good. If it does I will have to drop gamepass as it wont be worth the few games I play a month.
Of course there will be a significant price increase. The business model simply is not sustainable. Gamers that think it is are pretty much living in the fantasy world they play in.
I am NOT paying more so that they can add CoD to gamepass. If they do that, once my subscription expires I am out.
@MaccaMUFC I wonder if they’ll have a separate “CoD” tier? That way those interested can upgrade/pay more and those that aren’t bothered can stay on their existing/cheaper tier?
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