Microsoft Doubles Down On Bringing Activision Games To Xbox Game Pass Subscription

Microsoft has doubled down on its intention to bring Activision games to its premium subscription service, Xbox Game Pass.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Jeez how many more studios need to close to do this.

[Zeref]

Maybe these studios didn't close because of GamePass? Have you thought about that?

[Cacabunga]

COD is one of the worst series in gaming.. EA had a chance in gold to overtake COD but chose to kill Battlefield and Medal of Honor

[wesnytsfs]

@Cacabunga, That is your opinion which is highly in the minority since COD is always one of the best sellers yearly. We all have games we like, and do not like.

[Tankbusta40]

@Zeref

All your downvoters are crying about the Redfall studio but didn't purchase the game

[lodossrage]

@Tankbusta40

But why would they purchase anything?

Microsoft for the past 9 years has conditioned their customers to want everything for pennies on the dollar instead of buying.

How many copies can any game sell when the company that supposedly wants sales is telling people
A- we don't care about sales, just engagement
and
B- constantly telling the customers to get it day 1 for pennies on the dollar via gamepass

They literally cannibalized their own potential sales and then take it out of studios for not selling. That doesn't make sense.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Nii San
Gamepass has cannibal sales even Phil said so and unfortunately man there going to eat and eat more studios until they're satisfied

[-Foxtrot]

@Tankbusta40

Maybe people just give a shit about people losing their jobs

Going off reports people within the studio were pretty open about not being comfortable creating an online game as there was development issues with never doing one before, so when MS bought Zenimax in 2020 they should have went around their studios to see how they were doing and allowed them to just make something they were comfortable with, restarting development on it. It started development in 2018 after Prey released in 2017 and after 5 years it was still a shit show, they could have stopped it at anytime.

Clearly Bethesda were being a bit dickish to them before Microsoft making them work on an online game and even told them that Prey had to be called Prey despite the fact none of them in the studio wanted to call it that yet they were forced to. However Microsoft coming in should have listened to their concerns and they clearly didn't give a shit.

[Cacabunga]

@wesny

COD had nothing to offer since MW2 on PS3/360. Victim of its own success and didnt know how to keep the creativity going.
They for sure built a massive name, but that is what most are going for. Like FIFA where even the menus are the same since 2008 i believe

[Crows90]

@tankbusta

Sorry but why would you buy a bad game on purpose? That's stupid.

I purchased prey and dishonored. So yeah. Support doesn't mean buy bad games. Xbox released that game in that state...they're at fault.

[Redgrave]

Naturally, you'd appear amidst the current events and say nothing of substance.

[Lightning77]

Please Sweet stop damage controlling. If you're a real Xbox fan you would stop defending Ms destroying everything.

These suits want Xbox to make COD MONEY. After Xbox showcase next month you better think about how many of those studios will get shut down on the near future.

Nxile, Obsidian, The Initiative etc. Hell you better start advertising gamepass to all your friends because MS sure as hell won't.

So they decided to say yes to COD on gamepass they made up their mind. Cool they're doing at they promised everyone in the first place, grats.

[Blad3runner00]

“ COD is always one of the best sellers yearly.”

How many of those sales are from casuals? All this means is there is a lot of people with bad taste in games.

Sales does not equal quality.

[neutralgamer1992]

Zeref

Come on man. I guess now some people have figured out how to defend a multi trillion corporation. GP can’t be sustained with AAA games and if that’s how they will proceed than a lot more closures are ahead. Xbox use to be a meaningless brand for MS but when MS invests 100 billion they expect results. So the days of GP seeing all AAA games day one are really coming to and end a lot sooner than People want to believe

Xbox gamers don’t buy a lot of games and instead wait for games to end up on GP. For games to end up on GP MS has to pay for content. Take two ceo was right al along. GP makes sense for smaller games and games which could use more exposure but well know AAA IP’s don’t need to be on GP day one. There is a reason we are closer to a day when we will see gears of war on PlayStation and Nintendo because MS needs to sell games to other platforms. Phil got his users hooked on GP and now they don’t but a lot of games. That’s why we have publishers wondering if it’s even worth being a game to Xbox when chances are it may not even cover the development costs of porting the game

But keep doing you because to Xbox fans GP is the be all end all and they aren’t willing to budge. We are seeing real world affects of GP on developers

[Christopher]

There's been a ton of thought about it. Most people definitely agree Game Pass had something to do with it, as well as the ABK purchase. Thanks for asking, though.

[gleepot]

That's not why they closed, though. They closed for other silly reasons that don't make much sense.

[VenomUK]

Poor journalism by Twisted Voxel’s Muhamed Ali Bari. If you’re going to write that Microsoft has doubled down then include a specific quote from Sara Bond where she said this as evidence. without it you are interpreting her words to create a headline to fit a narrative.

[shinoff2183]

Yay cod.

I cannot fathom why people give a fk about cod(Xbox, ps, and PC players). Sure acti has others games but they haven't been the same in so many years.

When asked about Xbox games going to other platforms. She absolutely sidestepped and avoided answering the actual question.

Jeez just tell the base already

[ocelot07]

About that last part the silence is deafening.

She could of simply said. Other than COD we have no plans to bring anymore games to other platforms other than windows and Xbox.

[Eonjay]

I'm not sure why this is a question anymore. All console sales are down and none more than the Xbox. So of course they are putting all their games on PlayStation eventually. I do agree with you that her avoidance is silly and it really makes it look like they thing the base is stupid. Or maybe they really don't care about what the base thinks at all. Maybe they are embarrassed to admit that GamePass was really a bad plan from the start and they completely messed up predictions.

[ocelot07]

@Eonjay

Don't think they can ever come out and say "gamepass has hurt Xbox". The amount of backlash would be insane.

I don't even think they can change gamepass (I think they would love to at this point). If they come out and say yer from now on more more days one games instead trials will replace them. Or you not certain games will come to gamepass day one (not cod).

[fsfsxii]

Its simply the most content rich and fun shooter on the market, how is that hard to understand? All the criticism cod receives is honestly jealousy that its so consistent.

[-Foxtrot]

Lmao.

Jealousy? Sure bro...

[shinoff2183]

I'm not jealous of cod. Trust me lol. I don't even like fps. Especially military shooters. Their overplayed and have worn out their welcome. Now a fps like bioshock. Hell yea more then welcome.

[Rutaprkl]

You fanboys are so delusional. Keep believing.

[redrum06]

Because the majority of gamers are just casual gamers that are not as interested in trying out newer/other stuff than what they already know.
It's fun for a quick 0,5/1 hr gaming sessions, like FIFA, which is why its succesfull

[anast]

Gross. CoD is a sewer of a game.

[notachance]

lol the whole point of annual CoD is to make its fans buy the game anew again every year, if it comes to gamepass it’d be more cost efficient to never make a new CoD again and just make it a long term game like fortnite or counter strike.

yeah I can just see CoD take that route and close 2 studios out of 3. We’ll see.

[Profchaos]

Notice this years game is absent from the image

[MrBeatdown]

Is this even a real image? I think it's just some mock up for clicks.

[Seraphim]

The whole point of annual CoD now isn't games sales. It's MTs. These publishers/games are making money hand over fist on MTs, not from selling games. This is why the entire industry has been pushing monetization of everything..... mts made up 61% of Acti-Blizz income in 2021.

[PassNextquestion]

What does MT stand for? Multiplayer transactions..or something along the lines of engagement with the game

[Seraphim]

@PassNext.... - Micro transactions. MT, MTX, whatever they abbreviate them as.... or perhaps we can start calling them Macro transactions now that so many games are charging $20+ for something like a skin....

[jwillj2k4]

Yessss put COD on gamepass and destroy its worth. Keep being dumb Microsoft we love it!!

[anast]

Profchaos already answered this issue.

[LabRat]

now on gamepass we gotta scroll through 5 rows of cod.

[Profchaos]

Stinks of misdirection

[Eonjay]

Yes anyone with a brain has picked up on their PR spin pattern by now.

[jjb1981]

If they actually fixed the servers I'd jump back into Black Ops 2 and I'm sure thousands more would. This just seems like misdirection. It looks like they will not be including the most recent CoD game if the image is anything to go by. They want that $100 vault edition sale plus all the Bobby Bundles you can buy. Once the new yearly iteration comes out they will add MW3 to it. Welcome to Phil's Cafe. Would you like to try the omelet?

[thesoftware730]

Some people on here say CoD is trash, they are either in that minority, or just straight up lying to "Fit in" on the Internet, as it sells gangbusters every single year.

It so funny how they call CoD trash, garbage, and sewer of a games, but yet the dumb ass FoamStars game, they claim they see potential and it just launched at a bad time BS ass excuse.

Then they claim, anyone playing CoD is dumb adults or kids? Yeah, because you know, taking objectives of serving as a Helldiver, and claiming, you have "done your part" in a game is sooo much cooler and adult...smh.

[Plague-Doctor27]

Most people on gaming forums say FIFA, NBA 2K, and Madden are trash too. Do you think they're lying too?

[thesoftware730]

No, not necessarily, that is why I said, "in the minority or lying", could be either one because, Madden, FIFA, and NBA 2k sells gangbusters as well.

So if they are not lying, they are in the minority.

[Outside_ofthe_Box]

Sports franchises are objectively garbage. This guy thesoftware is a diehard Xbox fan. Everyone knows that sport franchises are selling on name alone and not based off the actual quality of the game. They're the same game every year. Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's of quality. Same goes for CoD. It mainly sells on it's brand than the quality of it's content. I personally won't call it garbage because I have touched a CoD game in about a decade, would need to judge it for myself, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is as it's released yearly like a sports franchise game.

[VersusDMC]

Now that Call of Duty is Microsoft first party expect the defense force to come out strong. Especially telling that they come to defend Call of Duty being called trash when the last one sits at 57% on metacritic.

[The-VG-shamman]

Who’s actually exited about getting access to these call of duty games that have been way past expired?. Seriously lol. Like why is this anything to look forward to?

[DOMination-]

No matter what the cool people on the internet say or think, CoD is the most downloaded game over the last six months on PS5 in North America and third in EU.

So in answer to your question... millions.

[__y2jb]

The headline is misleading. None of her words is that interview even mean anything. It’s just vague exec talk.

[franwex]

They were dying for clicks.

[romulus23]

"According to her, the quality and the breadth of those games has only been going up over time"

lol, what?

[franwex]

They essentially bought them to increase subs. So I’m not sure why it’s taking forever. Mostly everyone already bought these games anyway so I guess future games make more sense if you want the same games you’ve been playing for over a decade-except newer.

I sub to game pass, but not because of Activision, and they play no role in me deciding if I want to keep my sub.

[babadivad]

They need to bring all CODs to game pass except the most recent one. I'm gonna be playing the old black ops
zombies.

[__y2jb]

I think this is what they will do as a halfway house solution. I also think this will undermine and eventually destroy the franchise.

[TwoPicklesGood]

Might sub to pc game pass if that’s the case

[Redrocket]

I hope it does kill cod!! Basically just a free multiplayer besides the ridiculously short 4-5 hr campaign and they want 80-140$ and nobody even plays the campaign except on day1 only cuz they blew a stack on the game! Then they are left with a multiplayer game that should be free to play considering 70%of the money they make comes from micro's from tweens that use mommy's card when they want the newest seasons content or skins!! Actually gamepass is right where it belongs and the game will still thrive unfortunately for people like me who despise this yearly reskinned franchise!

[SoloGamer1]

I think Microsoft fails to realize that...gamers hate Activision .. LOL