Call of Duty Reportedly Lost $300 Million in Potential Earnings Due to Xbox Game Pass

In light of Microsoft raising the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate – the one that lets you play new games on day one – by 50% to $30 a month, a number of reports have emerged online scrutinizing the service, with one especially notable report putting into numbers what many had long suspected: that a number of players a game has reached doesn't correlate with its sales and, as a result, can not be reliably used to estimate its earnings.

While Xbox Game Pass has long been hailed as a perfect way for gamers to try out new titles without having to spend 60, 70, or even sometimes 80 dollars a piece, many in the industry suspected that AAA developers and publishers – who can spend $100 million and above on a single game – might not be so happy about the subscription service cutting into their sales.

According to a recent Bloomberg report, citing seven current and former Xbox employees, Microsoft itself – the owner of Game Pass, along with Activision, Blizzard, Bethesda, id Software, and numerous other high-profile studios – is one such publisher, allegedly losing a staggering $300 million in Call of Duty sales on console and PC last year.

The write-up goes on to state that adding Call of Duty to Game Pass was a win for subscribers but not for Xbox's game sales, according to former employees. Even though Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 marked the biggest launch in the franchise's history, that success was largely driven by PlayStation sales, which accounted for 82% of total sales, and while the game did boost Game Pass subscription revenue, many subscribers canceled after one or two months, resulting in lost potential sales and revenue for both Microsoft and Activision.

Applying the same logic to the hundreds of other games available on the service suggests that the studios lose a substantial amount every year because of it, which may be the reason why the price of the Ultimate plan was increased in the first place.

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