Game Pass lost ‘millions’ of subscribers due to last year’s price hikes

When Asha Sharma stepped in as the new head of Xbox earlier this year, one of the very first things she did was partially undo a Game Pass price hike from 2025. Now we know why, as it is claimed that Microsoft lost ‘millions' of subscribers following the price hikes.

During a live interview at Summer Game Fest, as reported by GameSpot, Xbox's new chief strategy officer, Matthew Ball, confirmed that Game Pass lost “millions” of subscribers last year after the price hikes. The cost increases arrived in late 2025, when Phil Spencer was still the head of Xbox, while also making big changes to the different Game Pass tiers.

This will have no doubt spurred on the decision by Sharma to reduce Game Pass prices once again for the PC and Ultimate tier subscriptions. Presumably if they had lost subscribers, growth for those tiers had also flatlined with the price increase.

Of course, not everyone is happy about the existance of Game Pass as it is. The service has drawn plenty of criticism from people in the past, even former Xbox employees, due to the type of pressure it puts on internal studios. This week, Moon Studios head, Thomas Mahler, who shipped Ori and the Blind Forest and its sequel, Ori and the Will of Wisps, on Game Pass, said that Game Pass creates a situation where it needs constant ‘smash hits' to remain relevant and maintain subscribers, which is near impossible to achieve.

He may have a point there, as despite sinking billions of dollars into acquiring studios, key investments like Bethesda and a myriad of smaller studios have all underperformed in recent years with newer games.

KitGuru Says: Were you one of the people that unsubscribed from Game Pass last year due to the price hikes?

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