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Slow news week for Microsoft...Comment
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FTC resumes case against Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard | Eurogamer.net
Raging against the dying of the light the FTC decides to continue to snap at MS's heels over the deal. However, things are so far along now that their efforts won't stop the deal from closing.Comment
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Microsoft cloud services set for fresh probe by UK regulator | Eurogamer.net
Hell of a timing as Ofcom raises cloud market concerns to the CMA who are taking in final feedbacks on its decision until tomorrowComment
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Looking like next Friday the It's Happening Bunker opensComment
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I would presume any Ofcom or FTC continuing disputes aren't going to stop this?
Provided the CMA are happy with the cloud changes I'd just assume MS is going to close and ride out other stuff...Comment
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Pretty much, barring a major shift in stance at the last minute it seems pretty much a lock to close next weekComment
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After 20+ months of it I think any late change of stance from the CMA is just going to be met with MS still going the closure route and taking it to court.Comment
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Under the basis that the deal is 100% closed - Activision have confirmed that it will be 2024 when their games begin to arrive on Game Pass and that work is currently under way to prepare for that.
Activision offers a timeframe for Xbox Game Pass inclusions ahead of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's launch | Windows Central
Diablo IV and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III won't be among them howeverComment
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Reading between the lines... Diablo IV will be on game pass early next year (now player numbers have dropped off significantly) and all those old games you know and love... they'll be on game pass a lot sooner...Originally posted by Neon Ignition View PostComment
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Reading between the lines it sounds like Activision are worried whats going to happen to them if they go the route of other studios like Bethesda and launch their biggest games straight into game-pass. They talk about how retail sales day one give them a massive injection of cash.
The Microsoft problem now is that Call of Duty feels too big for game-pass, 2022,s Modern warfare 2 made over a billion in revenue in its first ten days on sale, how do you replicate that sort of income via gamepass, even if it attracted millions more people the sums dont work you've bought a company based on its retail sales and your now making it so that players have to stay with game-pass for seven months if you want to recoup that cash, and that's just one game, game-pass dosen't give you access to just one game.
I don't know how they will solve this, maybe some sort of halfway house where New cods don't come day one but launch 6 months down the line, or maybe the premium route is enough of an incentive, £30 to play early and get a load of perks that would cost you £90 on PlayStation, but then their sort of cannibalizing their own sales with this route as surely £90 on psn is still worth more than £30 on xbox.Last edited by Lebowski; 10-10-2023, 16:56.Comment
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It definitely highlights an interesting quirk that MS has to contend with. If Game Pass subscriber levels don't end up multiplying into the 100m+ range, what is their contingency plan?
It's helped revenue to increase but the costs of content are increasingly massively, I wonder what they'll do if Game Pass proves to be limited in the same way consoles have largely been for themComment
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I don't see COD going into game pass day one... it's almost a title that's a law unto itself.
Unless releasing COD on Switch or other strategies subsidise it enough to make it work then I think they simply won't do it.
It'll more than likely be 6 months after... at a minimum.
We also don't know if MS will want to continue with the challenging annual cycle with COD anyway so I feel the whole landscape could change and it'll dictate how they approach game pass as well.
What I am sure of is every back catalogue COD title will be on the service pretty soon.Comment
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For all the focus that has gone on it, and the success of the system, I 100% expect Call of Duty on Switch to largely bomb and be something MS puts up with for the sake of the deal but axes once the 10yr window closes.
Call of Duty is a house of cards, you can feel it straining already with things like this years lacking in new content. However, once COD abandons yearly releases I'd expect its brand strength to take a pretty critical hit. I expect new CODs will land on GP on Day One as otherwise MS would be introducing a new dynamic to the service which I don't think they would want to do, effectively diluting the main perk of the service and internally effectively elevating the series above everything else their studios work on. Given Xbox is a smaller player, presumably the various other outlets will be used to offset things to an extent but I'd expect MS to try and streamline things by narrowing down the resources COD entries need given that huge swathes of Activision Blizzard as a whole won't be required once the buyout goes through so savings can come from elsewhere too.
I've not tried the MWIII Beta yet but after planning on using points for it I'm sliding quite a bit to the idea of skipping it and playing it when it hits GP down the line - probably a telling indicator already of the impact GP has on COD
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