Activision / Treyarch / Raven Software / Call of Duty
It hasn’t been a good week for Microsoft and Xbox, and new reporting is only adding to the bad news.
Microsoft is still weathering the fallout after gently trying to break the news of a price hike to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to gamers from $19.99 to $29.99.
The announcement led to Xbox players rushing to cancel their subscriptions, and the page on Microsoft’s website where they could do so crashed.
It would also seem that the adverse effects of the price hike have spilled over into the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 open beta, which is currently underperforming when compared to the recent beta for EA’s Battlefield 6.
New reporting from Bloomberg, based on interviews with current and former Microsoft employees, details the problems Game Pass has caused for the company and arguably its biggest video game franchise.
One unnamed employee reveals that putting Call of Duty on Game Pass resulted in Microsoft forfeiting around $300 million in sales.
The same report also notes that while Xbox boasted about Black Ops 6′s sales being positive, IGN discovered that 86% of those sales were from PlayStation owners.
Many of the people who spoke with Bloomberg also agreed that Game Pass has become a detriment to Microsoft, costing more than it should, which is in stark contrast to the current Xbox President, Sarah Bond, who claims that the subscription service is profitable.
Welp.
With games like Ninja Gaiden 4 and Outer Worlds 2 on the horizon, plus the new handhelds on the way, we shall see how Xbox continues to push forward.
You can see reactions to this latest news below.
