Asha Sharma, Xbox's new boss, admitted in an internal memo that Game Pass has become too expensive for players. A brave statement. About six months late.
Alexandrosse
Sometimes it takes several months, a leadership reshuffle, and an internal memo leaked to The Verge for a major company to admit what its customers have been shouting at it since autumn 2025.
In April 2026, Asha Sharma, Xbox's new CEO who took over from Phil Spencer in February, officially acknowledged the obvious: Game Pass has become too expensive.
Her exact wording, from the memo in question: "Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation."
Free translation: yes, we treated you like ATMs, and we're going to rethink this.
Let's return to the scene of the crime.
In October 2025, Microsoft completely overhauled its Game Pass tiers. The result: Game Pass Ultimate, previously $19.99 per month, jumped to $29.99. A 50% increase in one shot. PC Game Pass went from $11.99 to $16.49, a 37% rise.
Going further back, a subscriber who has been on Game Pass Ultimate since the 2019 launch went from $15 per month to $29.99 — a 76% increase in under eighteen months. Microsoft outpaced inflation. Impressive, in its own way.
The community received all of this extremely well. There were "thank you Microsoft for this excellent news" comments everywhere. Actually no, it was the opposite.
Six months later: Asha Sharma acknowledges in an internal memo that the current model isn't the final one, and that a "better value equation" is needed. The phrase "value equation" smells strongly of a management consultant billing $3,000 a day, but the intention seems genuine.
Game Pass Ultimate currently costs $29.99 per month. Over a year, that's $359.88. For that price, you can buy a lot of games. Real ones. That you own.
The service's value proposition rests on a broad catalogue and first-party Microsoft games from day one. That's a strong argument. The problem is that the monthly bill has hit a psychological threshold beyond which many players run the numbers and realise they're coming out worse off.
Especially compared to the competition.
PlayStation Plus Essential is $9.99 per month. Nintendo Switch Online costs $19.99 for a full year. Not per month. Per year. A single month of Game Pass Ultimate at $29.99 costs one and a half times what Nintendo charges for twelve. It took some audacity to set that price and call it value.
Worth noting that Game Pass still has 40 million subscribers in 2026, up 10% year-on-year, which proves the service remains attractive to many. But at what price, and for how much longer?
Microsoft isn't just acknowledging the problem. Solutions are beginning to take shape.
A new first-party-only tier. The idea is to introduce a cheaper subscription giving access exclusively to Microsoft studio games, without third-party titles. Interesting in theory. In practice, the main appeal of Game Pass for many players is precisely the third-party library. A tier without them is a bit like a pizza without toppings. The base is still edible, but you can see what's going on.
A potential Netflix bundle. Asha Sharma confirmed she has discussed with Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters the idea of a combined Game Pass and Netflix subscription. Peters replied that he "wouldn't eliminate any possibilities" — the most polite way to say nothing has been signed. The idea isn't stupid: the two services share an audience of casual gamers who might be tempted by a combined package. But right now it's well-packaged wind.
World of Warcraft integrated into PC Game Pass. This one is concrete. Blizzard has been under Microsoft since 2023, and including WoW in PC Game Pass would be a strong argument for PC players. Provided it doesn't come with yet another price increase to offset the cost.
Asha Sharma is saying the right things. And that's already a notable shift from a leadership that raised prices 50% without blinking and seemed genuinely surprised that players weren't delighted about it.
The problem is that acknowledging an issue and solving it are two different things. The options floated so far are vague, conditional, or frankly minor. An internal memo that leaks, Netflix conversations "at the ideas stage", a first-party tier whose shape isn't defined: this still looks a lot more like crisis PR than a genuine overhaul.
Game Pass has a real value proposition. Microsoft studio day-one games are genuinely compelling. The accumulated catalogue is real. But at $29.99 per month in a market where the rest of the competition sits well below, Microsoft shot itself in the foot with a shotgun.
The good news is they seem to have realised it. The bad news is we'll wait and see before we believe it.
Because in this industry, between "we've become aware of the problem" and "we've fixed it", there are usually eighteen months of roadmaps, three announcements, and a second price increase.
Source: internal memo cited by The Verge, Windows Central, GameSpot — April 2026
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