The big Xbox Game Pass announcement this week was a price cut for the subscription and a major shakeup that sees new Call of Duty games no longer coming to the service at launch.
Curiously, Microsoft’s blog post announcing the changes did not say all of Xbox’s other first-party games will launch on day one into Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. The blog post said only that Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers will get “major day-one releases.”
Given that language, many are wondering if other games beyond new Call of Duty releases could be stripped out of Game Pass for day-one launches, or “windowed,” to use an industry term. That remains to be seen, but it’s a possibility that analyst Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis believes could happen.
Why? It’s probably all about money, as these things usually tend to be.
He wrote on LinkedIn that keeping new Call of Duty games out of Xbox Game Pass for about a year would generate “significantly more revenue” for Microsoft. Indeed, there was reporting that Microsoft missed out on $300 million in revenue when Black Ops 6 launched into Game Pass on day one. Microsoft no doubt got people to sign up for Game Pass by including it in the service, too, so the $300 million figure might not tell the whole story. But clearly, losing out on that revenue is not something Microsoft is keen to continue going forward.
In any event, a temporary lift in Game Pass memberships is not the kind of dream scenario that Microsoft might have envisioned, so it makes sense to see the company cut out new Call of Duty games from Game Pass going forward. There was also no doubt a not-insignificant percentage of Game Pass subscribers who were not interested in Game Pass at all, and yet were essentially helping subsidize the franchise’s inclusion by way of their membership, which went up to $30/month in October 2025.
With Call of Duty games no longer launching into Game Pass, Microsoft brought the price of the subscription down to $23/month–that’s still $3/month more than where it was prior to the hike. What’s more, it’s not the major discount that you think it is, but instead a sly sales tactic ahead of potentially painful shift in the future if Microsoft enshittifies Game Pass with ads as some are expecting.
In any event, Harding-Rolls believes day-one games on Game Pass are “not dead” going forward, saying this perk remains a “core piece” of the selling point of Game Pass in the first place. At the same time, however, he said Microsoft might look to the possibility of “windowing other new first-party releases” in the future. Harding-Rolls didn’t elaborate here, but GameSpot understands that games set for release in 2026–including Forza Horizon 6, the Fable reboot, Halo: Campaign Evolved, and Gears of War: E-Day–all remain on track to launch into Xbox Game Pass Ultimate when they arrive.
Perks like Fortnite Crew, EA Play, and Ubisoft+ Classics, along with access to online console multiplayer and cloud gaming with no restrictions, will remain part of Game Pass Ultimate, GameSpot understands.
Circana’s Mat Piscatella told GameSpot that Microsoft Gaming CEO Sharma’s memo to staff that leaked signals that “all options are on the table” for how Microsoft could evolve Game Pass over time.
“Windowing could make some sense, as could the bundling option,” he said. “I do not know where all this is going to go, but I was happy to see the price drop and Call of Duty removal. Will it pay off long-term? Will it make a huge difference? Unsure. However, I think this move puts Xbox in a better position than it was, and that future changes to the Game Pass offering could certainly help further.”
We don’t know how Microsoft plans to further shake up the Game Pass offering in the future, but Sharma has said the plan is to make the service more flexible. A report said a part of this could be a “pick-your-own” type of Game Pass plan, through which people could pick and choose what games and services they want out of the membership, tailored to their specific interests. It remains to be seen how this might work in practice, however, but one new perk that does seem to be coming is some form of additional Discord benefit.
