Not too long ago, Microsoft sent waves of frustration through the gaming community by significantly bumping up the subscription fees for its Game Pass service. The backlash was so severe that the cancellation page was briefly overwhelmed by a surge of users desperately trying to jump ship.

Reports have emerged pinning the blame for this corporate shuffle on the revenue cannibalisation caused by Call of Duty. According to a Bloomberg report on the 4th (KST), Microsoft has been feeling the financial sting ever since it folded its flagship Activision acquisition into the Game Pass library.

Internal estimates from former employees suggest Microsoft swallowed a loss of over $300 million (approx. 400 billion KRW) in console and PC sales last year alone, thanks to Call of Duty’s shift in distribution. Analysts at Aldora noted that "Game Pass failed to hit the explosive growth figures Microsoft projected post-acquisition, leaving them to realise that their infrastructure costs simply don't align with the current subscription model."

While Call of Duty’s debut on Game Pass was a massive win for subscribers, it has left Xbox’s physical retail numbers in a sorry state. In fact, 82% of sales for last year's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 were generated on Sony’s PS5. It is rumoured that this imbalance prompted Microsoft CFO Amy Hood to demand that the Xbox division find ways to plug the revenue leak.

The future looks even rockier as the Call of Duty series braces for a counter-attack from its long-time rival, the Battlefield series. With Vince Zampella—the godfather of Call of Duty—now heading the development of the upcoming Battlefield 6, there is a real risk that he will lure back disillusioned fans who have been pining for the golden era of Respawn Entertainment. The market is betting that the success of Battlefield 6 in October will dictate just how many copies the new Call of Duty title manages to shift when it drops in November.

Meanwhile, the external criticism of the price hike has been nothing short of vitriolic. Lina Khan, former Chair of the FTC who initially fought against the Activision merger, took to X (formerly Twitter) to claim that "the merger has harmed both gamers and developers, leading to significant price hikes and mass layoffs." Even the Governor of California weighed in, blaming the price surge on former President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, while GameStop joined the fray by posting a cartoon nudging customers back toward physical store purchases.