He didn’t fought against the merger. He fought against COD exclusivity. He was open to the merger from the get go as seen in the email exchanges. As long as he got COD contractually bound on Playstation for foreseeable future!! Phil didn’t even negotiate with him beyond the existing contract (Ending with MW3) & asked him to FO!! That’s the point where he decided to object it with regulators. Phil opened it up for 3 more games (BO6,BO7,&MW4) but even that wasn’t enough!! Then came the famous 10 year contracts which signed even for toasters!! Once the streaming rights were transferred to Ubisoft for 15 years only then it was game on for Sony because after 2035 things would be on cloud anyway!! Sony killed the Xbox brand by holding it by the balls in front of the regulators. With the biggest games in their portfolio like COD,Minecraft,WoW,Diablo,Overwatch couldn’t even be used to boost Xbox hardware sales….it wasn’t even a no brainer choice to go multiplatform with the whole slate!! With COD not even part of GamePass it’s obvious that the whole model has failed & is coming crashing down. It’s not a price cut like being depicted….it’s another backtrack on promises. Imagine someone who bought Xbox hardware after Phill Promised in open court that CoD will be part of Gamepass on Xbox. Another batch of robbed gamers!!

Bet Jim Ryan wasn’t thinking this would be endgame when he fought against the merger

First of all, finally we got some price cut from a gaming related thing in 2026. Is it not a big thing where everything else getting expensive when it comes to gaming? Lol We all know, no company roll back price after increase. MS under new leadership did right thing but lot more needs to be done. And 75b ddollar was spent for that COD money which went away due to GamePass. It was bold and risky move to add COD in GamePass. Good for consumers but pretty sure share holders were not happy. This decision is taken due to share holders pressure and some community pressure im sure. Its a sensible compromise by Asha to make gamepass more affordable while keeping overall valvue of service intact. Gamepass ultimate will still have all other first party games as dayone like before. Its basically went to pre CoD model. Gamepass was 20$ before they added CoD. Now 2 bucks extra is for Fortnite crew and Riot games subscription service which comes with gamepass along with already existed EA play and Ubisoft connect service. Its still a fantastic value man for 22$ if you already part of ecosystem and intersted in playing multiple Xbox first party games. You have to be rabbid Xbox hater to find no value in gamepass especially after price drop. Majority users subscribed to gamepass like me to play multiple dayone games not just COD. Gamepass had 35 million users in 2024 before CoD was even added into service. This proves CoD wasn't the only major game pulling gamers to service. Its multiple games and other benefits makes gamepass amazing service for Xbox ecosystem users https://www.reddit.com/r/xbox/s/w8sMTdnHfX Halo, Gears, Forza,Fable and Elder Scrolls nd all will be on gamepass ultimate dayone. Everything same except COD gone. COD will come to gamepass few months after the release and since COD games dont go on sale much, you can still play new one on gamepass after launch. Microsoft still allows GamePass conversion system. They officially support it even though some stupid ppl keep saying its hidden backdoor loophole or something lmao https://support.xbox.com/en-IN/help/subscriptions-billing/manage-subscriptions/xbox-game-pass-conversions