ImportantEnterprise Tech
Call of Duty never made much sense for Xbox Game Pass
Microsoft is removing future Call of Duty titles from Xbox Game Pass at launch while cutting subscription prices by $7/month, reversing a $68.7 billion acquisition strategy that failed to drive meaningful subscriber growth and cost the company $300 million in lost game sales. This signals a strategic pivot under new leadership to focus on sustainable business models rather than using premium franchises to artificially inflate subscription metrics. For IT leaders, this demonstrates the risks of major technology investments driven by speculative growth assumptions and underscores the importance of measuring actual business outcomes rather than relying on anticipated synergies.
The Verge2 min read
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. | Image: Activision Blizzard Yesterday Microsoft announced some surprising news: at a time when everything in gaming is getting more expensive, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate was actually getting a price cut. Going forward, the subscription service will drop from $29.99 to $22.99 per month, less than a year after getting a major hike. But there's a caveat. Along with the cheaper price, Microsoft also announced that future Call of Duty games will no longer be available through Game Pass at launch. It's the end to a strange experiment from Microsoft, in which it attempted to boost its subscription service at the expense of selling Call of Duty games, which also happens to be on … Read the full story at The Verge.