What will Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 in Game Pass mean for Xbox and PlayStation?

gamesindustry.biz:

Microsoft recently confirmed that the upcoming annual Call of Duty premium release will enter its Game Pass multi-game subscription service at launch.

This promises to boost interest in Game Pass and disrupt Sony’s full game business, but by how much? While it’s challenging to predict the specific commercial impact, Activision’s product strategy, and the agreements made during its acquisition by Microsoft, means the impact will not be as far reaching as it might have been in the past.

Microsoft follows through with well-established strategy

Microsoft’s decision to put all first-party games releases directly into Game Pass was a watershed moment for multi-game subscription services and propelled the service to more significant consumer adoption over the subsequent years.

Following the huge cost of Activision Blizzard’s acquisition, there was some recent speculation around whether its biggest franchise, Call of Duty, would make it day-and-date into Game Pass. Realistically, it would be difficult for Microsoft to row back on this key policy either by windowing the inclusion of the game or placing the game behind a more expensive subscription paywall. This would have undermined the positioning of Game Pass and weakened its appeal significantly.

Adding new Call of Duty releases to the service will attract entirely new and lapsed subscribers to Game Pass. We expect most of those new subscribers to be at the Ultimate and PC Game Pass tiers. There is no doubt that adding Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 to Game Pass at launch will be expensive, at least initially, for Microsoft, but there are factors that will reduce the costs associated by such a move, while still maximizing the positive impact on subscription numbers.

These include:

Sony will be commercially disrupted, but F2P and live-service attributes lessen the blow

PlayStation Call of Duty gamers will inevitably be disrupted to an extent and that will be a concern for Sony. At its recent annual Business Segment meeting, Sony