The acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft should be effective soon. In anticipation, the publisher is answering questions from players regarding the arrival of its big titles of the year in Xbox Game Pass.
By purchasing Activision Blizzard, Microsoft gains access to an impressive catalog of video games, among the most popular in the world, such as World of Warcraft, starcraft, Diablo, Call of Duty or candy Crush. After many pitfalls, this acquisition should soon be finalized, perhaps as early as this week.
Many players are obviously taking note of this approaching change by not pre-ordering Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, the new episode of the franchise scheduled to be released on November 10, 2023. Why pre-order a game for 80 euros if it can land in Xbox Game Pass at no additional cost very quickly? On X, formerly Twitter, the official Activision Blizzard account calms the heat.
” Not this year “
Activision Blizzard’s position is complex. Since the publisher has not yet merged with Microsoft, it cannot speak for its next management. However, we can imagine that its teams have spoken sufficiently with Xbox to have a good vision of the short-term strategy. Thus, the message published on X (formerly Twitter) states that neither Diablo IV neither Call of Duty Modern Warfare III will be offered on Xbox Game Pass this year. This suggests that they could quickly be added to the catalog in 2024.
On paper, this statement joins that of Phil Spencer, boss of Microsoft Gaming, who had already calmed expectations by ensuring that porting games to Xbox Game Pass may take a little time. Activision Blizzard specifies that “ we plan to start adding games to Game Pass over the next year “.
This is a very understandable strategy on the part of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. Call of Duty is the most lucrative license in the world and this comes in part from the purchase of the game at its full price in numerous copies. Each year, the launch of Call of Duty is one of the most important commercial launches in the industry. Microsoft probably doesn’t want to break this dynamic. It should also be remembered that Sony and Activision Blizzard signed a contract on the franchise Call of Dutywhich should protect the new episodes from arriving in the service of PlayStation’s competitor.
However, we can note that Activision Blizzard seems to concentrate on recent or upcoming games in its communication. We remain convinced that Microsoft should soon quickly offer a large catalog of Activision Blizzard games in Xbox Game Pass as soon as the takeover is completed. This should involve adding old games, for example, the oldest episodes of Call of Duty or other franchises such as SpyroAndCrash Bandicoot. During the acquisition of Bethesda in March 2021, Microsoft added 20 games from the publisher the day after the merger.