Microsoft could be considering another price hike for its Xbox Game Pass subscription service, which might be sweetened by the inclusion of future Call of Duty games.
The company’s beleaguered gaming division has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons of late, with its underperformance underlined by the recent shuttering of a couple of highly regarded internal studios.
In a recent piece examining Microsoft’s Xbox troubles, The Verge journalist Tom Warren has made a couple of noteworthy claims about potential solutions being discussed at MS HQ.
One of those solutions is apparently a straight up price hike for the company’s prestigious Xbox Game Pass game subscription service. Given that we’ve not long received such an increase, it might not go down too well with customers – especially in light of those developer closures. Why pay more for a service that has technically just gotten worse?
Perhaps the second solution being discussed can help out here. According to the report, Microsoft has been discussing adding future Call of Duty games to the Xbox Game Pass roster. Apparently, such discussions have been taking place internally for quite some time now.
It’s easy to see why this would be appealing, given that Call of Duty is one of the biggest properties in gaming, and one that’s almost synonymous with online play.
However, there are clear misgivings about the lost revenue this would incur on Activision Blizzard. Call of Duty is a juggernaut of a money maker as things stand, and the idea of giving its £70 games away for ‘free’ seems counterintuitive, if not downright perverse.
We’re sure Sony would have something to say about such a move, too.
