Call of Duty’s origins of being the ‘under dog’ are laughable when compared to its current status. After Medal of Honour flooded the market with World War 2 shooters, often replicating over and over, Infinity Ward came to be. What followed was a revolution.
Discover the impact of Microsoft's decision to include Call Of Duty in Game Pass. Explore the pros and cons and speculate about future changes.
We've put together 5 reasons why we believe the arrival of the Call of Duty franchise on Xbox Game Pass will be a big deal for Microsoft.
Microsoft will reportedly add new tiers and pricing to its Xbox Game Pass subscription with the addition of Call of Duty to its game catalog.
CoD is just a way of raising the prices and pushing people into paying more for Game Pass. It’s losing its value and the day 1 first party games aren’t really worth it anymore.
yes, because people were sold on the promise of one price, activision games included, now they want another whole tier to include cod,
not what people initially brought into, (well gamepass had many subs even before Activision, but you get my point)
So, One more lie, to add to the stack of lies, perpetrated by these scumbags,
jin_sakai probably think this ones the nail in the coffin, id tend to agree
Sony better take notes and rethink their future plans.
this really couldn’t get worse..
If you pay attention to the target audience of this so called gaming service it all starts making sense and MS is doing exactly what they r supposed to do to get their money back ... if you really understand the reasoning of the lower side of the spectrum of the cod players MS has found its gold vein ... we r in business territory as entertainment is long deceased on the MS vocabulary.
If they’re as stupid as to make it more than $5/month increase from the highest tier I’d laugh my ass off.
That would be a way of getting to say they kept the promise of all games on GamePass without cannibalizing their sales
Making gamepass worse value by making it more expensive, as well as CoD losing Xbox sales and PlayStation gamers will want it less if Xbox gamers are getting it for "free".
Takes real talent to damage 2 things with one move.
Call of Duty needs to be taken down a notch, its too popular for its own damn good. So yeah, it seems like MS is going to help make that happen. So good job, I guess?
If they price it so high that people won't want it, they won't sign up so MS won't lose out on sales. Not all of those bad things will happen, just some of them
Really? You think CoD on PS would sell less cause Xbox gamers get access thru gamepass? I doubt that. COD fanbase is huge they're gonna play where they want to play and not care how the next person got it
I ended my subscription right around when they announced the purchase of Activision/Blizzard.
No offense but I'm not paying a subscription fee to get the worst 3rd party publishers games for free. It's like paying a monthly fee to only eat at Chili's or Applebee's while everyone else is having all the amazing food.
My hope was Gamepass would bring more games like Grounded or Hi-Fi Rush. We have all seen how that's going.
I'll never spend another dollar on an Xbox service ever again after the recent studio closures. I've defended them on here and elsewhere but they don't deserve any trust from any consumer at this point.
And soon you will have the option to opt for the Sports package, but if you want sports you also need to pay for the weather package.
As Ive said since this thing was introduced. Prepare to get nickel and dimed.
They do that that'll be the end of them. They're not that crazy. Only way that would work is if you could build a game pass package $5 sports, $5 shooter, $5 rpg, etc. But even then it's bad business for MS cause ppl that only play sports and shooters would get it cheaper compared to an all game bundle and they'd lose money.
@Jin Sakai
But you're totally fine with paying for psn with no day 1, 1st party...
The PSN essential value you get with base online access is unparalleled, puts Xbox core to shame. The PSN extra package however seems to be diminishing in value as it probably should. With any luck we'll have people buying their frickin games again as these sub services lose popularity
@Coconut not gonna lie I wanna start buying games again lol. (I do but not day 1 releases) I still feel bad for not buying Ori 2. Had it not release day 1 on GP I would've bought. So if they move day 1 titles to a new tier (which I'm not subbing to) I'd buy the games I really want day 1. While the ones I want to play but not badly I'd wait til it's available on the lower tier to play.
@InUrFoxHole
oh come on, There was a time Xbox fans were ok with just paying for the right to play online without getting anything for it.
He's fine with paying for better games. Xbox ain't got it. Redfall day one enjoy....
Nah I disagree, the value of GP has been crazy they were screwing themselves for quick subscriber gain. I always felt the day 1 releases would eventually stop and they only did it to get ppl to sub faster. That's why it quickly surpassed PS sub. Now that they hit a ceiling and picked up Activision they can only A. Take away the day 1 releases and hope the sub count remain or B. Increase the cost and hope they keep the sub count. Seem they went with
C. Add a new tier which is likely a mix of A and B.
If the new tier is only Activision games and they leave ultimate alone I'll be happy. I don't play COD so
Did you say that when Sony raised the price of PS+ and didn’t offer anything to justify the increase? I doubt it…
if they add more top tier games , more value and charge more for this tier, cool thats just normal business and an option for its users. how does that affect you or us in any way. there is still a cheap option and so on. and yea over time we did expect it to eventually go up a few bucks. every other company has but now its a problem when ms does it?
anyone who thought microsoft was a good idea for leading the industry into a period of better games doesn't know Microsoft...
gotta make back that money somehow. but its definitely a scummy move before cod comes to gamepass haha.
Similar kind of thing happened back when Starfield came out.
The dollar new accounts for a month, trials, various promotions kinda dried up as they finally had a big game coming, following a price hike in July. But reception was eh.
And they haven't delivered on letting us cloud stream our owned library yet either.
I think you're hitting on the core issue with Starfield. All of this breaks down of they can't make good games. Whether you're leasing or selling to one platform or multiple, the games gotta be good. That's the thing that's absolutely bonkers about this whole thing: making good games has been Microsoft's Achilles heel for many years now
Where did they promise allowing you to cloud stream your owned library? Lol anything downloaded to your console you can play remotely anywhere. Don't recall them making that promise.
New tier for gamepass solely due yo call of duty is a garbage move though. They keep shooting themselves in the foot
@catastrophe
They said it June 2022
https://news.xbox.com/en-us...
"We’re excited to share that later this year, it’s our intent to roll out the ability for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members to play, from the cloud, select games they already own or have purchased outside the Xbox Game Pass library."
It doesn't surprise me, it's very clear that MS is trying as hard as possible to recover all the money spent on Activision and Bethesda, they will do whatever they can, doesn't matter if people will like ir or not, as long as the higher ups see money arriving, it's all fair game
Pretty much Xbox wrote a cheque that Microsoft can't cash.
Inflated metrics egos and a belief that they could get the casual gamer playing hardcore titles via cloud on mobiles really lead them to belive they were in a better position than the reality.
I don't believe gamepass was ever that strong with many gamers likely signing up multiple fake emails for the dollar trials over and over boosting that count along with Xbox live gold hacks and other methods of getting gamepass for next to no money a month have been well known and exploited for years.
Microsoft have a belief that everyone's grandma wants to play halo on a mobile if they could just reach them because they played Wii bowling once so they must want to play halo
While a rumour cant say Id be surprised if true.
Certain other subscription services I sub to have increased in price while adding nothing and we expect theyre potentially offering up the biggest game of every year and its back catalog for "free"?
But I'd happily skip it if there are options (or upgrade for a month for the campaign)
People expect the price of games to stay the same forever so why wouldn't they expect the same for subscription services?
Price increases are fine. As long as they make sense. Games at 60 was a good price point. Things don't have to go up in price just because.
I used to buy some games at 60...how many do I buy at 70? None. It's a loss for the industry. The higher the price the likelihood sales won't be as high. For $10 more they lost $60.
Same thing with subscriptions. As long as it's affordable people will set it and forget it. If it stops being affordable people will be more picky...so a price increase of $5 could net them a loss of millions.
Let's be honest, nobody wants prices to increase. I personally have always thought that $40 was the perfect price and never liked it when they increased it to $50 for the PS2 generation and then $60 for the PS3. The $60 price did hold on for a good while though.
Same with sub services. The whole appeal is 'the best deal in gaming' mantra people love to chant, but we all know that they will increase the price eventually especially if they are putting CoD that will actually sell a ton even at that $70 price point.
100% they're doing this. They can't grow GP so up the price and make a new tier whatever that tier maybe be.
Use COD as the driving force to get ppl to subscribe to it.
You can smell the desperation.
And it smells like gasoline being poured by a smoking person.
If you’re one of the many people who just play COD or FIFA or Madden etc then surely game rental makes no sense. Just buy your game and own it.
I see no way that gamepass becomes a significant part of the industry. It’s unsustainable without more price increases and people have seen through the supposed value proposition.
What if they eventually make COD subscription -only? Then people have to subscribe.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's the end goal and not just with COD, if they make gp the only option to play their games than they essentially force people to subscribe. Starts with removing physical games from stores which we have already seen them do, next provide no digital purchase option which they can easily do and then announce the game is available "only on gamepass". I believe we will see that happen in the not too distant future.
Holy crap!... I havent thought of it that way and to be honest the way things are it makes sence, I hate all this bullshit with subsrciptions, Take Photoshop, Microsoft office as examples. You have to pay monthly because there are no other options anymore. They might have the same plan here.
We just dont see it yet.
Remember when the Xbox defenders were posting laughing emoji’s whenever anyone pointed out the need to make back the $80bn? Apparently it was pocket change to Microsoft and didn’t even need to be included in any financial calculations.
In reality it turns out $80bn is a lot of money to literally any company and there has to be a plan to recoup it.
Less than 12 months after the acquisition and gamepass prices are set to soar and all games are going third party! That’s the price Xbox and its fans are paying for Activision. Was it worth try it? All those games were on Xbox anyway!
Some were cheering MS on just so they could deprive others of games that we all used to enjoy.
meanwhile sony has the most 3rd party exclusives out of any of the big 3 and paying to keep some other games off other platforms as long as they can but from them it's ok. Awesome double standards
@Michiel
Brother! There is a difference! Doing that does not indefinitely take IPs out of the multiplatform market. Furthermore, to be able to do that a company would need to have the install base to justify it on a case by case basis and be able to offer enough of an incentive to the developer. This is different from precluding games from other platforms by purchasing the PUBLISHERS.
Besides, was it not MS that invented timed exclusivity during the PS3/360 era?
I beg you, please have some sense of objectivity before it is too late. The route MS is going will have lasting effect on gaming, especially console gaming.
I was reacting to your argument that keeping games off other platforms is bad, not if it was bad if ms is buying publishers. You used that as reasoning but don't mind it for Sony. Give MS all the shit you want, cause they deserve it but you're just lying at this point. No one was cheering and what you blame them for, you cheer Sony on for. Thus double standards.
so FF7 not coming to xbox is not taking it out of the market? Granblue Fantasy not coming to xbox is not taking it out? Just stop with the jumping through hoops to justify it for your favorite company. So if they have enough of an install base it's fine to pay for exclusivity? Even at the cost of square going bankrupt? Is that good for the industry? it's still just people who wanna play games on xbox even if there's not as many of them, no need to treat them like 3rd class citizens just because there's a smaller install base.
I don't agree at all with ms buying whatever they can get their hands on, but I also don't try and glorify Sony for paying to keep 3rd party games off other platforms.
You're the one not being objective here, I don't try and jump through hoops to justify it for one company and not for the other. Buying publishers or 3rd party exclusivity BOTH take games away from platforms. In the case of rebirth, should I now praise Sony that I have to wait a year+ if I want to play it on pc while the game is obviously already made, just cause they throw some cash at square? how is that detrimental to the industry, the only one it benefits is Sony's bottom line, not even Square's as you have now seen.
Helldivers 2 also proves that they don't care about the industry or their players, the only way to get them to change something is if it will hurt their sales. Stop putting them on a pedestal, stop giving them a pass for everything just because they aren't as bad as MS. Sony is not your friend, Sony does not care about you, they can do better and they should.
The only reason I wouldn't say this about ms is because I actually really like a lot of things sony has done in the past and the games they made and that there's a chance they will do better, for ms i lost all hope at this point. They literally got a golden key but can't find the keyhole in broad daylight.
I think it's going to be more than COD. I think it's going to be any new AAA games from MS. Highest tier includes Doom, COD, Elder Scrolls (if GP is a thing by then).
If Ultimate is £12.99 now my guess is new tier will be £15.99.
Wait for the Xbox Games Showcase where they will first woo you with an opening announcement that CoD is Day One Games Pass and then right after the show a PR notice that prices are going up OR an announcement of tiers as though it's a premium offering.
MS already increased their price, this is a new one. And this time games will be locked behind a new tier. People thought they bought into a “day one” for first party. Now turns out there will be tiers to the “day one”. A little different wouldn’t you say?
Its a matter of how much gamers are willing to bend over.
They "put there" a game you could already play on xbox. Now you'll get to pay more to play the same game.
Everything goes up in price. At least Microsoft has a reason. They have purchase Activision Blizzard for even more content.
If Sony announced all new Call Of Duty games will come to the Playstation Plus, or whatever the equivalent Sony service is, day one from now on would you assume their will be a price increase to the service? How about all of Activision Blizzard games from now on? Would we expect Sony's monthly subscription to be increase in price?
As they say you get what you pay for.
Bend over just a little more and you can have a new tier of “day one” games.
Yes, the best way to respond to this article is to make the completely hypothetical "what if Sony" comment as apposed to focusing on what xbox is doing to it's fanbase. Correct they did purchase Mojang, Zenimax, Act/Blizz for hundreds of billions, that shouldn't be a reason to fleece their fan base becasue they decided to buy up as much of the industry as possible.
"Game Pass Ultimate offers a game catalog of hundreds of games across console, PC, and cloud."
Will this be the only tier for PC gamers? So PC gamers are forced to play the highest tier🤔😂
Let’s hope this works out. I don’t want Sony all alone, that’s not good for anyone. But MS keep fucking up, there’s really no options left if this move does not drive GP subs.
I sincerely doubt this is going to drive interest in Game Pass. It is not uncommon for people to play a very restricted rotation of games, and Call of Duty is just one game. Knowing people are working longer hours to provide for their families, why remain subbed to a service just because it gives you access to many games when in reality, you only care about very few and it's very low on your list of priorities to do? It's not just about limited interest in offerings, limited time to play is an overlooked factor. In my own experience, I cancelled Kindle Unlimited years ago because I simply didn't have time to read all of the books I had access to. At some point, you're losing money. Now I'm back to just buying my books or doing digital rentals from my library. I believe a similar principle applies. Those with the most time to take advantage of the service and want to, ironically, often have the lowest means to commit to it without someone else paying for it, for them. Game Pass as a service is really best intended for people who have well paying jobs that don't require extra hours and they don't have families to raise. Otherwise, you're paying for a service that you can't get much use out of, the exception being if your family also games and they game extensively. Now with a potential price hike to access Call of Duty? I think that's a very tough sell.
Whether it is Game Pass or Plus, it seems good for the companies for you to use it less and continue to pay for it, than pay for it and actually use it. They must know this.
Most people wouldn't justify upgrading to a more expensive tier for one more game a year, even if it is Call of Duty. So what else could they offer, to try entice people to upgrade? Maybe an additional ABK tier I guess. Hopefully they don't take away features from existing tiers to make the more expensive ones more appealing, like oh right, Day 1 Microsoft games coming to Gamepass.
I would expect MS giving all previous COD with this TIER and give access to Battle pass
Soon you will have the “sports package”. Cable tv style. Then, eventually they will completely replace game sales with service subscription packages.
So $19.99 or up. I'm probably not going to get COD but I'd own it after my initial purchase. After making 3 monthly payments of $20+ gamepass users will still not own the game and go on to pay $240 for it after 1 year.
I take no pleasure in seeing M$ falter like this. I remember the heady days of Halo 2 and J Allard's presentation on the new 360. But sometimes something has to collapse before you can build something new. And I say that about a great number of things in the here and now.
Upping the Gamepass price cause of Activision and still charging a season pass for CoD is insanity
We been expecting this day. If I had to guess
GP Core 9.99 (what Gold was)
GP ultimate 15.99 (cloud and library catalog, 1st party games now come months later, no day 1 releases)
GP Max 20.99(day 1 titles, EA play)
They'll probably throw a non gaming sub in there somewhere
Yep. Many have been saying the price will continue to raise and substantially over time as they can only sustain the carrot and the stick trick for so long.
Its bs you still have no rights over digital keys you purchase either. Its all a sham
CFO: "This is a problem Phil, we can't sustain by giving all new games day 1, why did you promise gamers that?"
Phil: "Well, I never said which tier."
Like I said last year I expect MS to make an Activision Tier that includes games like COD with battle pass.
Yeah and everyone said the price increase would come in some form or another and a bunch of idiots said nah. So now it's happening tier or not.
More of Microsoft screwing up. Last thing people want to hear is a price increase just another reason why I don't do subscription services. All they are doing is trying to recoup the money they spent to acquire Activision.
So Sony copied M$ with pay for online and sub model rental service. Now M$ copies Sony with tiered pricing for rental service.
you do all realize they raised the price last year from 14.99 to 16.99. we already been through this.
This is so awesome to watch Microsoft slap their sausage on all the Xbots' lower lips, all day, every day.
Call of Duty (COD) has evolved over the years, but many long-time players feel it has strayed from its roots. Originally, COD rewarded tactical gameplay, where players could use the map's camping spots to their advantage. This encouraged strategic thinking and allowed for varied playstyles.
However, recent iterations have shifted focus toward fast-paced, aggressive gameplay. The emphasis is now on rushing and getting quick kills, rather than utilizing the map's features for a more methodical approach. This change is partly driven by the developers, who have responded to complaints from players who struggle against tactical camping. Instead of recognizing camping as a legitimate strategy, they have adjusted the game mechanics to discourage it, catering to a playstyle that prioritizes speed and aggression.
This shift undermines the diversity of gameplay that once made COD engaging for different types of players. Tactical camping should not be degraded or removed just because some players find it challenging to counter. It’s a valid playstyle that adds depth and variety to the game, and it deserves to be preserved. By accommodating all playstyles, COD can remain a game that appeals to a broad audience, rather than forcing everyone into a single, less nuanced way of playing.
Adding to this frustration, Microsoft's intention to charge more for a game that consistently fails to innovate and seems to favor one playstyle over all others is ridiculous. Players are being asked to pay a premium for a product that not only lacks substantial new content but also alienates a significant portion of its player base by discouraging diverse strategies. This pricing strategy feels unjustified and highlights a disconnect between what the developers are offering and what the community values in the game.
They can deal with me NEVER paying anything more than $15 USD. They're treating games like drug dealers treat their products: "Oh, this good stuff... I'll charge more, even though it does the same thing and nothing more. They're addicted; they will pay anything to get their fix... let's exploit that addiction for profit."
It's sickening... just dirty.
call of duty united offensive was my fave. Shoutout ot the Foy map!
call of duty 2 is my personal favourite cod game. I must have played through that game 20 times.
They have come a long way from a largely unknown developer doing a WW2 shooter to the best selling franchise around.
There used to be a time when people said Medal of Honor and Halo were kings of the FPS genre. My how things changed.
On that note I salute Call of Duty for helping put an end to the swarm of WWII shooters that used to flood the market.
The opening paragraph is worded fairly frivolously. It says that MoH did WW2 "over and over" again, which is true, but that's exactly what CoD did from its inception in 2003 up until 2007 when CoD4 released. Not to mention Infinity Ward was founded by ex-EA LA devs who previously worked on MoH Allied Assault and prior titles, and it shows with some of the aspects of gameplay in the original CoD.
Grant Collier, ex-Founder of Infinity Ward, said years ago in an interview that they wanted to do a modern warfare game from the get-go, but it was Activision who told them to make a WW2 game. When CoD did as well as it did, a sequel was ordered, and once again IW was told to do a WW2 game. After that, Grant and his crew were adamant that their next game would be a game with a modern backdrop, and they were given the extra time to make it, which is why in 2006 CoD3 was developed by Treyarch (Treyarch was given less than a year to make this game solely for the purpose of a new CoD being released every year) and CoD4 would release the following year.