Next ‘Call of Duty’ title to be released in the Game Pass for more subscriptions

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The successful video game series "Call of Duty" will be available and playable in the Game Pass right from the release of the new installment later this year. Owners of Microsoft's Game Pass will therefore be able to play the game directly at launch as part of their subscription at no additional cost. According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Microsoft plans to announce the inclusion of COD in Game Pass at the annual Xbox Games Showcase on June 9. This is according to people familiar with the matter.

Microsoft hopes for user growth in Game Pass

The first-person shooter series "Call of Duty" was the biggest point of contention between Microsoft and Sony as part of the Activision takeover for 69 billion US dollars. However, Microsoft assured Sony early on that the annual titles would continue to be released for the PlayStation - for at least ten years. Since the Activision-Blizzard takeover, only Diablo 4 has made it into the Game Pass from the current top titles. With the inclusion of "Call of Duty" in the paid subscription service, Microsoft is hoping for more and new paying users, according to the WSJ.

Last September, the release of "Starfield" in Game Pass on the release date had already resulted in a record number of new subscribers in a single day. "Call of Duty" is one of the most successful entertainment products, and an average of 25 million copies of each part of the shooter have been sold in recent years. A purchase – also on Microsoft systems – is still possible. It is also likely that only the basic version of the game without additional cosmetic items will be available in the Game Pass. In the past, the different versions of the game with various additional digital content cost between 79 euros (base game) and 109 euros.

Subscription model - negative impact on value creation for top titles

In a court hearing regarding the US Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) lawsuit against the Activision-Blizzard deal, Bobby Kotick, longtime Activision CEO, expressed his "distaste for the idea of multigame subscription services" and Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said that subscriptions are fine for catalog games, but not for new releases, the WSJ further reports. Analysts see a big risk of cannibalization in releasing top games that still command top prices. "We firmly believe that a general industry shift to a subscription model would negatively impact value creation at publishers," TD Cowen analyst Doug Creutz wrote in his final report on Activision last year.

On the other hand, Microsoft is not in a position to not include its own top titles in the Game Pass directly on release if other game publishers are to follow suit. Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter sees the addition of "Call of Duty" at launch as a signal to publishers that Microsoft is focusing on the subscription strategy.

2024 "Call of Duty: Black Ops"?

The "Call of Duty" for 2024, which is normally released in the fall, has not yet been announced. According to rumors, the developer Treyarch is working on a new "Black Ops" part. The story is said to revolve around a conflict in the Gulf War. Allegedly, the upcoming title will also be the first to feature an open world in which you can explore the game world with vehicles, for example - the missions will continue to be linear. According to reports, the 2024 "Call of Duty" will also be presented at the Xbox Game Showcase on June 9.

(bme)