It’s a pretty standard view that Games Pass is a great deal for PC and Xbox players, even if the price does keep creeping up. An unparalleled library of accessible games for a small(ish) monthly fee and day one exclusives such as Starfield, Halo, and Forza sweeten the deal still further but it is the wealth of other games, games such as Palworld and Flight Simulator that means that even between downtime of the enormous releases, there doesn’t really feel a need to pause your subscription.
Compared with offerings from the likes of Ubisoft and so on, it feels like I only ever really dip in there when a new game comes out whereas my Game Pass sub runs and runs.
Since Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the day has always been coming that a brand new Call of Duty game would come to Game Pass – technically free for existing subscribers, and a much cheaper way to play for new subscribers. The caveat, you need to play on a PC or Xbox. This deal is not for PlayStation gamers (you can play on Xbox Cloud, but that’s messy).
That day is almost upon us and we soon get to find out, perhaps, the future of Microsoft’s gaming subscription plans. If this works it brings the whole “everything can be an Xbox” line closer to being. If bringing a game the size of Call of Duty (and we are not talking about install sizes) to a subscription service, and if, with ‘if’being the key word, people lap up said subscription service in order to play, then that moves the needle for Xbox and Microsoft and the plans for gaming domination.
Measuring success with Black Ops 6
It’s unknown how many new subscribers Microsoft wants/needs to class this move, and indeed a massive investment, a success. It’s also clear that the metric does not need to be measured by the end of this month.
Within minutes of CoD being released, there will be the usual suspects crying it’s a failure, regardless of not knowing the real truth and ignoring the fact that this is a much longer-term play than some internet mouthpiece searching for instant clout.
As the years pass and people become used to the idea that the new Call of Duty will be on Game Pass on Day One, more and more people will start to consume it there, that is inevitable, Microsoft has already made the investment, it won’t just stop doing it. It has nothing to lose. Removing a future version from a Day One Game pass release will admit failure. CoD on Game Pass is a thing now.
If it is a success it is safe to say it may not be long before those Game Pass subs prices start heading north. Microsoft has already removed its $1 Game Pass trial ahead of the Black Ops 6 launch which, despite complaints, makes perfect sense. They need to get the new subscribers on rolling contracts on the higher tiers, not just drop out after playing CoD for a month.
The next trick is to keep them subscribing until this time next year, and that is when we will finally see what is up the sleeves in Seattle.