A viral report circulated on social media on Tuesday that claimed that there would be a huge restructuring of Game Pass in 2027 with new tiers, including ad-based ones, multiplayer-only ones, and cloud gaming as a paid add-on.

One of its most significant claims, however, was that “Day One on Game Pass” games would end, and that would reduce the price of Game Pass back to the $20 it was before the 50% jump in October 2025. That was $30 price was reduced by the new Asha Sharma administration down to $23 , the caveat being that new Call of Duty games would no longer be included as day-one offerings. Now the idea is that the practice might expand. And even an official statement from Microsoft does not fully rule that out.

I asked Microsoft about the rumor, and while they did not discuss any specifics, this is what they had to say via an Xbox spokesperson:

“We regularly test different Game Pass offerings and look at what works best for players in different markets. We don’t have any changes to announce today or plans that have been finalized. There are no changes to previously announced games coming to Game Pass Ultimate on day one.”

The last line is of note, given that it says “previously announced” games. Even if they won’t rule it out forever, there’s no “that’s not being considered at this time,” or some other such language.

I can’t say any of this is shocking. Putting every single first-party game on Game Pass on Day One will have or already has had diminishing returns, given that Game Pass subscriptions are flat or down after that previously enormous price hike.

Of course, it’s a rock and hard place situation. Yes, you will get more game sales this way, way more, but you are also eliminating the biggest reason most players have Game Pass in the first place, so no doubt subscriptions would fall.

This seems like it could be a compromise for the controversial multiplatform strategy, however. Take Elder Scrolls VI. Microsoft would lose a ton of sales on its own platform if it was day one on Game Pass, and who knows how much that might increase existing subscriptions, given that most Xbox players are either in or out already. So, you might need to give it to Sony where it would probably sell tens of millions of copies, and you would reap at least a lot of that as the first-party publisher. But then your coveted big release is practically a flagship PlayStation title, given its install base.

However, if you take Elder Scrolls VI out of Game Pass, you not only get 100% platform sales instead of a smaller fraction due to the day-one philosophy, but that could be enough to play keep-away from PlayStation and be the only console to have an enormous release like that. That is something that could move consoles in a significant way. Add Fallout , Halo and other titles, and you can see how this could reposition Xbox’s entire place in the market. I don’t think it needs to be every single game, but big ones? Some, at least. But again, this comes with lots of risk. We’ll see if anything is announced soon as we head toward 2027. Clearly something has to change.

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