Xbox CEO called Game Pass ‘too expensive for players’ in a leaked memo

Xbox’s new CEO Asha Sharma has only been at the helm for a few months, but things already seem to be changing for the better. Or at least they could become cheaper. The edge reported that Xbox’s new CEO wrote a memo to employees regarding the current price of the Game Pass subscription service.

“Game Pass is at the heart of the value of gaming on Xbox. It’s also clear that the current model is not the last,” Sharma was quoted as saying. “In the short term, Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation. In the long term, we will evolve Game Pass into a more flexible system that will take time to test and learn.”

After Microsoft raised the price of Game Pass twice in 15 months, many of us certainly felt that the service had become too expensive to keep. Xbox still offers a wide range of titles on Game Pass; April update adds freelancers like Hades 2 and new Double Fine project Oven alongside AAA hits like the remake of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The edge‘s sources suggested that the addition of the CoD franchise could have been a factor in some Game Pass price increases, since Microsoft would lose revenue by making the latest entries in the series available under subscription.

It’s too early to tell whether this memo from Sharma means Xbox is on the verge of a resurgence. And the company could make changes, like adding ever more complicated levels, that would further dampen interest and adoption of Game Pass. But acknowledging the problem, even internally, is refreshing after so many confusing moves from Xbox in recent years.