While Microsoft recently announced price drops across all tiers of its Game Pass subscription service, it looks like the company has more planned for the future. According to Windows Central’s Jez Corden, the company plans to make Game Pass more flexible, allowing subscribers to “pick your own plan”. While the company hasn’t confirmed anything as of yet, the strategy would allow users to essentially pick and choose the benefits they would actually want from the subscription service.
“A sort of ‘pick your own plan’ formula for Xbox Game Pass is on the cards, essentially, where users can effectively decide what packages of content they want to see as part of their plan,” writes Corden. “Microsoft has leaked ‘Duet’ and ‘Triton’ codenames for Xbox Game Pass via its back-end APIs recently, suggesting that packages of services are in the plan’s future. Don’t want Xbox Cloud Gaming? Remove it and lower the price. No need for Fortnite Crew? Ditch it and add day one Xbox games. Perhaps you can roll in World of Warcraft or Minecraft Realms subscriptions instead, or even other benefits like Netflix, per rumors, or the long-awaited Xbox Game Pass Family Plan.”
It is worth noting that the recent lowering of Game Pass subscription prices has also come with the caveat that Call of Duty games will stop showing up in the service on day one of their release. Rather, plans going forward revolve around bringing in Call of Duty games around a year after their initial release, which would likely be timed with the release of a new entry.
“Beginning this year, future Call of Duty titles won’t join Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass at launch,” said the company when announcing the new Game Pass prices. “New Call of Duty games will be added to Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass during the following holiday season (about a year later), while existing Call of Duty titles already in the library will continue to be available.”
“Our players cover a wide breadth of geographies, preferences, and tastes, so while there isn’t a single model that’s best for everyone, this change responds to a lot of feedback we’ve gotten so far. We’ll continue to listen and learn.”
According to Corden’s sources, this decision was made thanks to a large amount of revenue being lost when Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 was released on Game Pass from day one. When something like this happens, the company reportedly uses a “weighted formula” to “charge” profits from the subscription service back into the appropriate studio’s budgets. The price hikes from October 2025 were also attributed to this lost revenue from Call of Duty sales.
As for the rumored tiers for the subscription service, a recent report has indicated that, while Cloud Gaming will continue to be offered, there will be a time limit. This would put it in line with similar services, like Nvidia’s GeForce Now, which offers a maximum of 100 gaming hours per month. The tier codenamed Triton, on the other hand, is expected to include only first-party games developed by teams under the Xbox Game Studios banner.
