A new price hike and debate over Call of Duty on Game Pass are being debated by Microsoft

Many questioned whether Microsoft, which recently acquired Activision Blizzard, would continue to offer its first-party titles on Game Pass on the same day as their official release date. More precisely, this would apply to Call of Duty, which has become one of the most successful video game titles in recent years.

However, according to a recent source, Xbox is still debating whether or not to add new shooter series installments to Game Pass, and the platform owner is also considering raising the service’s fee even again.

In a recent report, Tom Warren of The Verge stated that Microsoft has “had internal debates” regarding whether or not to include the most recent Call of Duty games in its gaming subscription service. This argument has been “ongoing internally for quite some time,” according to Warren. Opponents claim that a Game Pass release of Call of Duty would “undermine” Activision Blizzard’s (and, consequently, Microsoft’s) earnings.

Warren says that Microsoft “has also contemplated” raising the price of Xbox Game Pass’s Ultimate tier, which is a fascinating development. Once more, nothing is set in stone on this, but Warren speculated that it would indicate that a later Call of Duty game would be available in “most versions of Game Pass.”

For an extended period of time, the Call of Duty brand has been one of the most profitable intellectual properties in the gaming business. A few instances of Call of Duty’s financial success include 2022, when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II became the first game in the series to sell one billion copies. Additionally, a court document revealed just last year, during the FTC vs. Microsoft trial, that Call of Duty on PlayStation hardware “directly generated over $800 million” in the US in 2021.

The announcement was made just over a day after IGN initially revealed that Microsoft was closing four Bethesda Studios, including Arkane Austin, the developer of Redfall, and Tango Gameworks, the creator of Hi-Fi Rush. However, Xbox’s Game Pass plan is becoming a more significant worry. Although Microsoft’s latest earnings showed that Xbox’s content and services (which includes Game Pass) were up by 62%, Activision Blizzard was the primary driver of that growth, as noted by Warren and Jason Schreier of Bloomberg.