The Game Pass service provided by Microsoft for its Xbox and PC players allows players to pay an unlimited monthly fee to play unlimited game lineups on the platform, and many of Xbox’s key new titles will be on the platform on the day of launch. However, according to Matthew Ball, Xbox’s new chief strategy officer, they lost millions of subscribers after the Game Pass platform raised its monthly fee last year.
At a recent The Game Business Live event, Matthew Ball said that Microsoft Xbox has lost millions of Game Pass subscriptions in the past few months, and the reason behind this is that they announced in October 2025 that they will increase the monthly fee from $20 to $30.
In addition, he also emphasized that the Microsoft Xbox team has since made another wave of adjustments to the monthly fee of Game Pass, lowering the monthly fee of the Game Pass Ultimate plan to US$23, and announced that the “Decisive Hour” series will no longer be directly on the Game Pass platform on the first day of launch. This has also become one of the first important decisions of new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma after taking office.
Although the $23 monthly fee for the Ultimate plan is still higher than the price before the first increase, Matthew Ball emphasized that “the value of the service has changed” for Game Pass, and so far, Xbox players have generally responded positively to this wave of changes.
Unfortunately, Microsoft does not currently disclose the number of Game Pass subscribers, so the outside world cannot determine the total number of users at that time, the number of losses, and whether there has been a rebound since the price reduction in April 2026. However, Microsoft announced in 2024 that the Game Pass platform had 34 million subscribers, but they included many players who converted from Xbox Live Gold (now called Game Pass Essential).
In the same speech, Ball also talked about Xbox’s brand and business, admitting that it had underperformed under the leadership of Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond. In addition, Asha Sharma himself once again promised to “reset” the entire Xbox business and brand, and part of the strategy is to strengthen the launch of “exclusive games.”
For example, at the Xbox Games Showcase conference held earlier this week, Microsoft confirmed that the two new games “Gears of War E-Day” and “Clockwork Revolution” will be released exclusively on Xbox consoles, and Matthew Ball also hinted that more exclusive plans will be announced in the future. At the same time, Xbox’s next-generation console “Project Helix” is also under intensive development.
Source: KOCPC Chinese