Six reasons why Microsoft is putting “Call Of Duty” on Xbox Game Pass

This week, a new report from the Wall Street Journal indicates that Microsoft is considering putting this year’s Call of Duty, likely a new installment of Black Ops, on Xbox Game Pass. It would be the biggest addition to the service since its launch, and an attempt to increase the number of subscriptions at a time when they are increasingly difficult to find.

This will likely be officially announced at an upcoming Xbox Games Showcase which will have its own Call of Duty section on June 9, in what was formerly E3. But before that, well-documented reports seem to indicate that this is what is happening.

This was always going to be the answer here, the only question was whether Call of Duty would come to Game Pass this year or next year. Recent reports suggest that there was some internal debate over whether or not to do this, but the benefits ultimately had to outweigh the harms. Here are six reasons why this happens:

• Making a first-party exception for Game Pass, even if it’s Call of Duty, would undoubtedly offend existing loyal subscribers and awkwardly break its “all-in” commitment to Game Pass. If this can be an exception, what else will it be in the future? And then Game Pass loses its perceived value.
• This is in effect giving up a good portion of Call of Duty sales, although Xbox’s market share, especially due to its low install base, is probably something they are willing to sacrifice for this to happen. So it’s not as big of a discount as it could be, and there are definitely some Xbox players who will buy it anyway.
• Much of Call of Duty’s revenue now comes from post-launch microtransactions, not day-one game sales (although those remain huge and COD is usually the best-selling game of the year). These microtransactions are not free with Game Pass, of course, it will continue to print money on Game Pass despite the inclusion of the base game. And Warzone was “free” anyway.

• Microsoft has few ways to try to steal players from the PlayStation ecosystem with relatively anemic first-party programming, and this is one of them. Even though during his trials he swore not to take COD exclusively to Xbox, and he doesn’t, the idea is that he can attract die-hard Call of Duty fans to Xbox consoles, or can -be towards PC/cloud games if not.
• This is one of the last important areas for the growth of gaming-based Xbox Game Pass. I can’t name another series besides Grand Theft Auto coming to Game Pass that could have as much of an impact on subscribers (and GTA 6 never, ever will). Starfield was the previous registration record holder, but I bet COD is blowing because of that.
• This gives them the opportunity for a price increase. Without a way to continue growing subscription numbers exponentially with Game Pass, more price hikes are coming, and a high-profile game like COD coming to the service is likely an excuse to raise prices, introduce more levels, or both.

So here we are. Again, I don’t see why this wouldn’t happen sooner or later. Whether it’s the right choice and does everything Microsoft hopes to do remains to be seen, but the fact that it made this decision is certainly far from a surprise.

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