Call of Duty on Xbox Game Pass? Activision never considered such an option

The Redmond giant shares more details about the planned purchase of creators of popular brands like Call of Duty, Diablo and Overwatch. In a multi-page statement, we can read about Activision’s stance on subscription services and the possibility of bringing the hit shooter to Xbox Game Pass or the PlayStation Plus catalog.

Microsoft continues to press for a favorable ruling on its proposed purchase of Activision Blizzard. The matter is facilitated not only by the massive efforts of Sony, which asserts that the Xbox manufacturer wants to significantly reduce its position in the market and threaten competitiveness, but also by reports about the decisive actions of the Federal Trade Commission.

Referring to internal data and testimony from the company’s most important representatives, Americans point out that Activision does not plan to add its recently released premium titles – including Call of Duty – to any subscriptions. Although arrangements for exclusive content for the PlayStation community, revealed last month, indicated that such an initiative would be prohibited, the manufacturer and publisher never considered that option. The most important reason seems obvious: it has to do with profits from block sales.

Activision has never released any new content on subscription services for many games and has no intention of doing so in the future…

At the same time, it was emphasized that even at the time of moving under the wings of the giant from Redmond, the company’s authorities did not take into account the change of approach. In terms of liquidity of income, it may turn out to be very unprofitable.

And the reason is quite clear. The release of Call of Duty in this mode will greatly affect the sales of the entire game. Even older catalog games continue to sell incredibly well, for example in 2021, which was seen as a ‘rollback year’ due to Vanguard’s performance. , the brand has sold 25 million copies of various games.

Activision makes big money not only from sales of products that debuted in a given year – retro shooters or microtransactions are also very popular, and players are constantly on the servers, which is why many games do not need support from subscribers from various subscriptions.

“Call of Duty is very strong because it boosts both full game sales and in-game purchases via microtransactions. Disrupting full game sales will significantly affect Call of Duty revenue; by comparison, Modern Warfare 2 made over $1 billion in 10 days of sales.” The full game alone across all platforms.

Thus, the company never wanted to follow the path of competitors (such as EA Play or Ubisoft +) and create its own service.