Game On: Xbox cuts Game Pass prices

“Game On” is The Fly’s weekly recap of the stories powering up or beating down video game stocks.

NEW RELEASES: This week’s most notable new release is Xbox Game Studios’ (MSFT) party action game “Kiln,” which launches for PC, PlayStation 5 (SONY), and Xbox Series X/S on April 23.

GAME PASS: Microsoft’s Xbox said that, starting Tuesday, Game Pass Ultimate drops from $29.99 to $22.99 a month. PC Game Pass will also drop from $16.49 to $13.99 a month. Prices may vary by region. Beginning this year, future “Call of Duty” titles won’t join Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass at launch. 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, the company said.

SWITCH 2 JAPAN SALES: The Nintendo Switch 2 (NTDOY) was the best-selling video game console in Japan last month with 448,494 units sold, bringing the console’s lifetime unit sales to roughly 5.15M units in Japan, William D’Angelo of VGChartz reported last week, citing VGChartz estimates. The first Switch sold an estimated 97,544 units in Japan in March, bringing its lifetime sales in the country to 36.76M units, while Sony’s PlayStation 5 sold 76,989 units, bringing its lifetime sales in Japan to 7.5M units, the author says. The Switch 2 experienced a sales spike in March as hit game “Pokemon Pokopia” released early in the month, the author noted.

PS5 SALES CIRCANA: Ahead of planned price increases, U.S. weekly unit and dollar sales of PlayStation 5 hardware reached 2026 highs for the week ending April 4, according to Circana analyst Mat Piscatella. U.S. spending on video game hardware, including the Xbox Series and Nintendo Switch consoles, for that same week nearly doubled year-over-year, according to Circana’s Retail Tracking Service.

MORE VIDEO GAME NEWS:

• Paramount’s (PSKY) “Call of Duty” film will release June 30, 2028
• Former Xbox exclusive “Starfield” was the best-selling game of the week ending April 11 in tracked physical and digital U.S. full game dollar sales following its release on PlayStation 5, according to Circana
• Nintendo’s upcoming action game “Splatoon Raiders” launches for Switch 2 on July 23, 2026
• Capcom’s (CCOEY) latest action game “Pragmata” surpassed 1M unit sales in its first two days of availability