Microsoft is reportedly taking the nuclear option: releasing the next Call of Duty day one on Game Pass

GamesFPSCall of DutyMicrosoft is reportedly taking the nuclear option: releasing the next Call of Duty day one on Game PassWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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Microsoft’s game subscription service has been a tentpole initiative in recent years, and its acquisition of iconic studios like Bethesda and Obsidian has led to old favorites and new releases being made available on PC, Xbox, and mobile for a monthly payment. Call of Duty has always beenThe Big Onethough: one of the most profitable media properties ever, no doubt a big driver of the $70 billion cost of buyingActivisionBlizzard. CoD’s inclusion would add a ton of value (and new users) to Game Pass.

It’s also a bit of a make or break move, and I find it hard to look at with anything but trepidation following wave after wave of layoffs and studio closures under the Xbox umbrella, most recently thebeloved studios Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin⁠. Part of the squeeze has to come from that fresh, $70 billion, Activision Blizzard-shaped hole in the balance sheet, as well as sluggish sales of Xbox Series consoles⁠—so farmatching the paceof last generation’s underperforming Xbox One and moving half as many units as Sony’s PS5.

So Microsoft has a lot of incentives to put The Biggest Game Series Ever on Game Pass: it could prove a huge shot in the arm for the service, with many traditional sales still going through on PS5. It still strikes me as a risky bet, though. That CoD money is a guaranteed windfall that Microsoft now wants to adulterate for the sake of Game Pass' success, and as members ofDigital Foundrypointed out on a recent podcast, once you’ve got a single CoD release on there day one, it’d be a hard sell to Game Pass subscribers to go back on that deal for future CoDs should it not work out financially.

Dave Oshry, head of FPS studio New Blood, told me earlier this year that they price their games once⁠—fairly reasonably, around $20-$25⁠—but don’t do any of those huge half-off or more Steam sales so as not to “devalue” the games. You can see the same thing with how Nintendo rarely puts its games on sale⁠—I might not like how much I’ll have to shell out for the Mario RPG or Paper Mario remakes, but I can’t deny it’s working out for the publisher, which ten years ago was solidly in last place among the big three. CoD on Game Pass will likely pay dividends on subscribers in the short term, but the service as a whole may risk devaluing the entire Xbox catalogue.

Then again, it’s possible Microsoft is right to put all its eggs in the Game Pass basket. If subscriptions are indeed the future of game delivery, being the first to build the biggest one could lead to huge returns. But at this point I’m not convinced that a “Netflix for games” revolution is really imminent, or that it would be good for us if it were.

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