Game Pass price cuts and Super Mario Galaxy’s box office dominance | Week in Views
The games industry moves quickly and while stories may come and go there are some that we just can't let go of…
So, to give those particularly thorny topics a further going over we've created a weekly digest where the members of the PocketGamer.biz team share their thoughts and go that little bit deeper on some of the more interesting things that have happened in mobile gaming in the past week.
Paige Cook
Microsoft cuts Game Pass price and drops Call of Duty day-one releases
Another week and I’m back talking about Game Pass. Xbox faced significant backlash after raising Game Pass prices last year and now under new CEO Asha Sharma, the company has lowered the subscription cost.
Another announcement was that day-one access to Call of Duty releases is being removed.
Bringing the Call of Duty franchise was widely considered one of the key aspects of the $69 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition, so removing it is a bold move. To be clear, they did say new Call of Duty releases will go on Game Pass but around a year after launch.
It seems that Xbox is trying to regain some value in Game Pass while also allowing Call of Duty to return to having healthy traditional sales, Black Ops 7 had one of the worst revenue performances in Call of Duty history and while part of that may be down to the game not being well received it would seem likely that it also comes down to the masses playing it through Game Pass rather than outright buying it.
It still feels like Xbox is trying to figure out what Game Pass should be and another rumour I’ve seen in the past couple of days is something I touched on in my last week in views. Reports suggest that Xbox is exploring a flexible, customisable Xbox Game Pass tier that lets players choose which features they want.
Last week, I mentioned that I get Fortnite Crew in my subscription, something I don’t want or need, so it would make sense for me to be able to remove that. Also, think of cloud gaming, the ultimate tier includes access yet the feature isn’t actually available in every country. So those players could simply remove that aspect from their tier rather than pay for something they physically can’t use.
These changes also arrive alongside broader messaging from Xbox leadership, with a statement that came out saying its new “north star” would be daily active players and a change from the "Microsoft Gaming” name to “We are Xbox.”
It's clear that with new leadership in place, Xbox is trying to present a strategy reset but how much real change comes of it we'll have to wait and see.
Aaron Astle
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie races past $755m to become highest-grossing film of 2026
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is now the highest-grossing film of 2026 thus far. It’s earned more than $755 million at the box office globally, led by $361m from the US, which pushes the franchise past the $2 billion point.
I finally got around to seeing this sequel last week, and contrary to its mega box office performance, I actually ended up in an empty screening. Perhaps it’s because we missed the opening weekend, and most parents would have taken their kids during the Easter holiday, but whatever the reason, my local cinema ended up playing the film exclusively to a room of three twenty-somethings.
The target demographic? Probably not. But at the same time, I think it does reflect Mario’s impact and why both films have performed so well. From Gen X onwards, every generation has grown up with the Mario IP, so almost everyone with the slightest interest in games is going to have some nostalgia for the red plumber.
The film was great fun, too. While it may not be studied as a screenwriting masterclass for years to come, it was packed full of faithful references, added some new series lore and even raised a chuckle with a few gags.
It was clearly a labour of love, and not just of Mario but Nintendo more broadly. I’d heard [spoiler] would make an appearance, broadening out from Mario to other IP, but I didn’t expect [spoiler] to show up too. And when a certain little ship docked and [spoiler] waltzed out, I almost jumped out my seat.
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