Xbox insiders say Game Pass has devalued games and hurt the industry

Multiple Xbox studio leaders privately view Game Pass as a net negative — not just for Microsoft, but for the games industry as a whole. Bloomberg's Jason Schreier revealed on the Triple Click podcast that senior figures inside Xbox "absolutely detest" the service, believing it has stripped their games of perceived market value.

A former Xbox studio lead told Windows Central that launching games day one on Game Pass sends consumers a signal that those titles couldn't sell on their own. "Giving games away for 'free' in Game Pass from day one sends a message to consumers that the games don't have inherent market value," the source said, adding: "It felt like a race to zero." Another Xbox lead said Microsoft's opaque engagement formula — measuring success through metrics like "times streamed" rather than copies sold — made it nearly impossible for studios to build a business case for their next project. Forza Horizon 5 creative director Mike Brown acknowledged Game Pass was a good idea in principle but said it never hit the subscriber numbers it needed to justify the model. The most concrete sign of the shift: Call of Duty is no longer available day one on Game Pass after the service measurably cut into direct sales.

Game Pass launched in June 2017 at $9.99 a month with 100 backwards-compatible titles, and quickly expanded to include all first-party games on day one — a bold move that drew early praise but also immediate skepticism from publishers like Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick. The service was Phil Spencer's answer to Xbox One's disastrous generation, a subscription play modeled loosely on Netflix and Spotify's success. For a while it worked as a lifeline for smaller Xbox studios whose games might otherwise go unnoticed, but a steep price hike and restructured membership tiers eroded its reputation as the "best deal in gaming." A recent report described Game Pass as an $80 billion gamble that hasn't paid off as Microsoft envisioned.

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has acknowledged that decisions made by previous leadership failed to grow the service meaningfully, and Schreier has speculated that Microsoft may make further changes to the day-one model as Xbox pushes to become a more profitable division. With Call of Duty already pulled from day-one availability, more first-party titles could follow — which would fundamentally change what Game Pass actually is.