Yeah. At first I thought it had to do with Bethesda acquisition really being rather small time compared to AB acquisition. That even though it’s clear where Bethesda games will ship to, this doesn’t necessarily mean the same for a gigantic system seller like CoD which makes a lot more money. But then like you say…they want to be the Netflix of gaming. So exactly on what would they be waiting before making CoD exclusive all the way?
I also saw a comment to his video in the comment section and basically you have to look at the wording used by Spencer he says. Current existing CoD games and Warzone indeed have communities, but future CoD games after the acquisition don’t have communities yet. They can do whatever they want if you look at it like that.
The “leaving money on the table” argument? Is this Bethesda all over again?
I mean maybe COD won’t be exclusive. Minecraft isn’t. Microsoft will do whatever they feel is in the best interests of their strategy. But it won’t be because “they have to make their money back and can’t afford not to sell those copies on PlayStation consoles”.
I think the appropriate way to look at it is…MS had 70 billion dollars in cash that they pulled out of their pocket and plunked down on the table. The idea that they are worried about short term financial gains is a tad comical. These moves are long plays. Its all about funneling users into the ecosystem.
Ill grant, there is a possibility that it can happen, but Im not buying it.
If we go by what Jeff Grubb said it’s going to look exactly like Bethesda. What he said was…
OK. Fine. I’ll do the damn discourse. Warzone will remain multiplatform, but I think main Call of Duty games go exclusive. Microsoft already ran the numbers on every scenario with Bethesda and it determined exclusivity to Game Pass is the best way to drive its goals.
It treats the money it loses from PlayStation sales as an investment/marketing cost to promote Game Pass.
At the end of the day it’s their opinion, their expectations and nothing more and I bet it will be a while before we get clarity. Could be next year, but at that point the CoD for 2023 is probably already a done deal for all platforms.
That has been my idea, merge normal MP with warzone and have it available everywhere. Then have one or two studios work on an 8-10 hour campaign to release exclusively for Xbox/PC every year or so. Standardize the engine and tools to make development more efficient and easy and that way any studio under Xbox could potentially make a COD story and release. Other than that anything on PS right now I can see remaining on PS, but future titles Exclusive all the way
Yep, consider also COD on Xbox is gimped since years, weekly or monthly delays on updates compared to PS, entire modes timegated for full years, less skins and even gameplay tools like weapons are also exclusive, etc…imagine if they owned COD, lmao.
Microsoft will probably report 70 billion in profit in June so its not about “making back their money”. Their money is just sitting somewhere. How much do they make with it? ABK makes them around 3 billion a year at least, does their money sitting around make them as much? And that does not count strategic and asset values from AKBs IPs.
I think it’s very different than the Bethesda situation.
I don’t think COD (and maybe OW2) will be exclusive.
I think it’s because they can use them to bring lots of players to Xbox (much more than with Bethesda) without doing a full exclusivity.
In doing so, they will not shut down the huge amount of money coming from other consoles players, and at the same time many will just move to Xbox for other benefits. Also MS still looks good for whatever that’s worth.
So what does Xbox gain?
No more deals or exclusive content to PS.
Separating COD from being attached to PS is alone a huge win. All marketing points to Xbox now.
Perks like early access and exclusive content makes Xbox version the version to get.
Exclusive spinoffs.
Older titles in Game Pass.
And of course, day one in Game Pass is huge, especially for a game people (and their friends) buy every year.
And they keep getting all they money from other consoles.
If that doesn’t work out the way they want (which I doubt), they can lock future titles one by one.
Microsoft made $61b in profit last year… I don’t think they’re going be wondering how they’ll keep the lights on, if they lose out on Playstation sales.
