Game Pass Ultimate up fifty percent overnight, cut back within a year
Game Pass Ultimate jumped from $19.99 to $29.99 in the October 2025 lineup shuffle
One of only 20 things they have ever fully walked back.
The market's verdict: +1.2% on MSFT in the week after.
What actually happened
On October 1, 2025, effective immediately, Game Pass Ultimate went from $19.99 to $29.99 a month, a fifty percent increase, while PC Game Pass rose to $16.49 and the tiers were renamed and reshuffled around it. Third raise in three years, arriving in the same year as two console price hikes. In April 2026, Microsoft walked the numbers back down to $22.99, in the same announcement that removed day-one Call of Duty from the top tier, a package best described as everything costs less and you get less for it. The lesson from the 2021 Gold hike still holds: never apologize mid-increase, but do keep an eraser handy.
This one is officially acknowledged.
They did it more than once
You paid more for day-one games. Then day-one left.
Four years later the same hike went through without flinching. The lesson stuck: never apologize mid-increase.
Third consecutive yearly hike, and this one was fifty percent.
Links
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Impact
- The Verge (publication)
↳ caused by Game Pass lineup changes (October 2025)
Timeline
- Jul 17, 2025 Stood by it Microsoft stood by it.
- Oct 1, 2025 Announced Microsoft announced it.
- Apr 21, 2026 Walked back Prices cut in the April 2026 reshuffle; day-one Call of Duty removed.