Ex-Sony Exec Comments on Game Pass

A former PlayStation executive has questioned Microsoft’s reported bid to revive Xbox Game Pass with a price cut.

Earlier this week, the new Xbox CEO, Asha Sharma, reportedly shared a memo with Microsoft employees that stated “Game Pass has become too expensive for players.”

The Verge reported on Sharma’s shift in strategy, which hopes to create “a more flexible system.”

“Game Pass is central to gaming value on Xbox. It’s also clear that the current model isn’t the final one,” the memo said. “Short term, Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation. Long term, we will evolve Game Pass into a more flexible system which will take time to test and learn around.”

In a comment on LinkedIn responding to the story (spotted by Respawn First), former boss of Sony Interactive Entertainment America, Shawn Layden, suggested there’s no saving Game Pass.

“They are trying so hard to will this into health, despite unfavorable diagnostics and a grim prognosis,” he said. “A clarifying post mortem would do the entire industry some good.”

Layden is a high-profile critic of subscription services such as Game Pass, saying last year that they can turn developers into “wage slaves.”

Microsoft appears to be reassessing all parts of Xbox now that Sharma’s in charge. It is reportedly considering pulling this year’s Call of Duty game out of Xbox Game Pass as a day-one release, with reports indicating the blockbuster first-person shooter series’ addition to Game Pass was one of the reasons the subscription got more expensive.

Microsoft added Call of Duty games to Game Pass following the company’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. While former Xbox executives had insisted sales could be boosted by a game’s presence on Game Pass, some publishers remained unconvinced. Former Activision boss Bobby Kotick, for example, was always against putting Call of Duty into subscription services.

In an interview with IGN in 2023, then Xbox boss Phil Spencer was asked how he’d handle his and Kotick’s different ideologies after the deal to buy Activision Blizzard closed. “Well, there’s a different person making the decisions,” Spencer laughed.

Last month, Sharma was said to have killed Microsoft’s controversial ‘This Is An Xbox’ campaign as it “didn’t feel like Xbox.”

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.