Microsoft’s gaming division is in crisis, but now a risky maneuver is supposed to ensure more growth
Like it or not, Call of Duty is one of the biggest gaming brands of all time: A new game is released every year, selling an average of around 25 million copies.
After the takeover of Activision-Blizzard by Microsoft, a change is now apparently imminent that could have a massive impact on these sales figures: Allegedly, the next CoD is to appear directly on Game Pass at release.
CoD 2024 to be released directly in the Game Pass
As theWall Street Journalreports, Microsoft is reportedly planning to make the upcoming Call of Duty 2024 available in Game Pass from day one. This announcement is expected to be made on June 9 during the annual Xbox Showcase
According to the WSJ, the plan behind this is said to be quite simple: Microsoft apparently wants to take full risk to attract more people to its Game Pass. In doing so, the gaming giant is apparently also accepting that the traditional sales figures on Steam, Battle.net and in the Xbox Store will be cannibalized
The aim is to retain people in the long term so that they end up spending more than the 70 euros for the new CoD. The Game Pass Ultimate currently costs 15 euros per month. If you buy it for a year, you will pay a total of 180 euros, which is more than double the price of a single Call of Duty game.
Microsoft is reportedly hoping that players will take out the subscription for the new CoD, but will become long-term customers due to the large number of other games, such asStarfieldorDiablo 4.
As the WSJ reports, this risky decision was due to a lack of growth: Game Pass has not met its growth targets in recent years and subscription growth in 2023 has continued to slow.
Microsoft’s games division is currently in crisis and recently announced the closure of several studios.
