Bloomberg - Xbox’s Hike on Game Pass Shows Cost of Lost ‘Call of Duty’ Sales
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-03/xbox-s-game-pass-hike-shows-cost-of-lost-call-of-duty-sales?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc1OTUyNzI0MywiZXhwIjoxNzYwMTMyMDQzLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUM0lWRFNHUFFROVIwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJGRUIzODlCNUI2ODI0RTY0QjY5MENEODE1RTBDREZGRCJ9.D1EObQzg2KlvqBoXPyEm5Yn-DznTYaVWC3okI5aX3AU&leadSource=uverify%20wall
"Xbox gave up more than $300 million in sales of Call of Duty on console and PCs last year, according to one of the former employees, who asked not to be identified discussing internal estimates."
“Game Pass hasn’t delivered the explosive growth Microsoft anticipated post-Activision, and they’ve realized their infrastructure costs don’t align with their pricing model,” said Joost Van Dreunen, founder of the video-game analytics firm Aldora.
"..while Game Pass “can claim a few victories with games that otherwise would have sunk beneath the waves (Human Fall Flat, e.g.), the majority of game adoption on [Game Pass] comes at the expense of retail revenue.”"
So basically Xbox people are estimating over 300m lost in revenue from having CoD on gamepass last year.
Which explains why its not part of the premium tier anymore, and why the Ultimate tier went up in price.
This is the part that stings.
"Xbox has said Game Pass is profitable, with revenue reaching a record of nearly $5 billion for the fiscal year that ended in June. "
Vs
"the majority of game adoption on [Game Pass] comes at the expense of retail revenue.”"
Lets say you make 5bn on gamepass, but ~3bn of those sales, are just shifted revenue you would have had from normal sales.
Then you factor in the price you need to pay game devs to put games on game pass ect.
You need to off-set your own games developement costs that you include in game pass.
Basically while gamepass might be profitable, its not setting the world on fire, once you factor in the other side of stuff.
(shifted revenue, paying studios for their games, your own developement costs of games, ect)
