Xbox Game Pass lost ‘millions’ of players due to price hikes, reveals Microsoft

Xbox considerably raised Game Pass prices in October 2025, a worth hike that price Microsoft thousands and thousands of gamers, in response to Xbox chief technique officer Matthew Ball. He spoke at Summer season Sport Fest’s The Game Business Live event on Monday and shared insights into the enterprise facet of Sport Move.

“We shed thousands and thousands of subscribers over the span of some months,” Ball mentioned (by way of GameSpot). Sport Move Final, the very best tier of Sport Move, went from $19.99 to $29.99 monthly, and the price change was too much for plenty of players. Xbox Sport Move had over 34 million players as of February 2024, the most recent confirmed quantity, and Xbox hasn’t shared the present Sport Move subscriber depend.

Within the months for the reason that worth improve, under new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, Ball mentioned Xbox has “corrected that providing.” Sharma had admitted Sport Move turned “too costly for gamers” in a memo leaked in April 2026, and later within the month Xbox dropped costs. Now, Game Pass Ultimate costs $22.99 a month — nonetheless dearer than the $19.99 pre-price hike, however way more palatable than the earlier $29.99 worth. A cheaper, pared-down version was also announced in May as a part of Xbox’s partnership with Discord.

Xbox is making an attempt to win again gamers not simply with a less expensive Sport Move, however with extra unique video games. After dabbling in releasing its IP on different consoles — good day, Master Chief on PlayStation 5 — Xbox is reevaluating its approach to exclusive games.

“Gamers can count on a dependable pipeline that validates their historic funding within the Xbox platform, retains them as Xbox gamers going ahead. And everybody within the business understands that exclusives are vital to the expansion and branding of that platform,” Ball mentioned at The Sport Enterprise Stay occasion (by way of VGC).

Nonetheless, after Sunday’s Xbox Games Showcase, Xbox’s emphasis on unique video games feels more like a PR stunt for the time being. Time will inform if courting probably the most hardcore gamers again with early-2000s console war rhetoric will win again those that fled lower than a 12 months in the past, not to mention the newcomers the corporate must survive generational shift.

An fascinating time! At the very least there are some legitimately good video games on Sport Move.