Microsoft should change cod to free 2 play overall and have the way to get the new multiplayer maps available via a Ultimate Battlepass(Warzone Battlepass & Multiplayer Maps Battlepass Together) and a 60 dollar bi-yearly Expansion(Campaign/Title Update/that includes Season 1 Ultimate Battlepass) warzone would still keep its own separate battle pass for those who just play Warzone that way they can hire or buy a support studio or two to help with the multiplayer/Warzone parts of the game and free up the teams to make other games alongside the bi-yearly campaigns.
If Microsoft is not allowed to have call of duty in the game pass this format would have better optics and they’ll still make tons of money since you’re adding a whole new platform. They could also give away the expansion as a perk of game pass or give game pass members a coupon (or reward for being a paying Gamepass member for a certain amount of time)once every two years to cover the price of the campaign or people could use the perk/reward to pay toward buying another title.
Call of Duty should be it’s own publisher or they should make a separate publisher (by name only that distributes multi-platform and multiplayer multi-platform games) so there will be no confusion going forward. Every other publishing arm or studio should straight up be Xbox Game Studios even though they will keep being managed and structured as if they were being run independently.
Xbox gaming studios needs to be on the title screen of every game that is exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem. The messaging is bad and has to be fixed in 2023 with Nintendo or Sony you don’t have these questions even with second-party games Nintendo or S.I.E pops up when the game first pops up so you would think they are first-party and know they are exclusive.
They also need to be clear about where you can play Xbox Ecosystem titles not on any device you own. It needs to be known you can play on any mobile device any web browser, Xcloud, Pc and Xbox consoles. Maybe they need to have one Game Pass direct and show people the different ways to access the content and how to differentiate what games can be played on those different devices. Then talk to devs about some of the bigger non Xbox Studio games coming to Game Pass this year. No, Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond, Aaron Greenberg, Pete Hines, or Major Nelson let the people who work on the different access points of Gamepass explain it just like they did with dev diaries.
I see Bungie has dropped Destiny Beyond Light onto PS plus this month.
If I recall, Bungie is supposed to be autonomous? But we all know this is not true. Why aren’t the destiny expansions on Xbox live gold or GamePass ?
As soon as the Bungie deal was confirmed, Destiny content left GamePass, and the destiny content on PC GamePass didnt last long soon after.
Why is Sony, the market leader, allowed to basically do whatever they want but Microsoft isn’t allowed to have exclusives ?
Logic has been defied throughout this whole process, and I hate to use the term but this is clown world territory
Microsoft shouldn’t need to give a 10 year deal for anything, they should be allowed to make CoD or anything else for that matter exclusive if they so desire, if they own the IP.
I just see it as part of the price, the “10” year thing is the cost. Lubricant on the wang of destiny penetrating the butthole of Playstation.
I also say anyone who claims “removing it” from Playstation isnt financially viable is full of shit. So Microsoft can’t do without $750m every 2 years because its UnSuStAiNaBlE…but can shell out $69B when the opportunity arises?
They’re spending $69B, but they’re spending one asset (cash) into another (video games publisher with strong brands). Diminishing the value of the newly acquired asset would be brazen in case they need to sell the asset.
COD comes with a huge online multiplayer crossplay community. Removing the Playstation community could also diminish the experience for Xbox only owners if they play with Playstation friends. COD will simply be treated like Minecraft by Microsoft, ie. not as console wars ammo. And Minecraft Legends is coming out on all relevant platforms this year.
But we don’t need governments to impose that. The calculus should be done by MS and MS only. Video games are not essential goods and the market remains highly fragmented.
The other thing with COD, aside from a whole discussion around affordability etc. is that by virtue of COD being on nearly every platform you deny a competitor a place to build and foster a real competitor. Pull COD off PlayStation and you give someone else a large market, plus demand from a platform holder, to create a true alternative competitor.
If COD is everywhere, a full priced experience, readily available on streaming services, a hard drive space hog, full of grind challenges etc. it’s that much harder to snag the audience away.
To me it’s not really about the money to be made on PlayStation, which is obviously nice on it’s own. It’s a security move to help secure the value of the IP into the future.
Some really solid points! I will clarify that Bungie isn’t autonomous, Destiny the IP is Bungie’s to do with what they want (though I imagine that is somewhat dictated by contracts that we’ll never get to see as far as which services it’s allowed to be on). They’ve come out and said that Destiny will continue to grow and be available on any platform, but time will tell if we ever see it come back to something like GamePass.
I’ll be working on something about this for the site. Stay tuned
I doubt diminishing the share to zero on Playstation would affect Call of Duty in any meaningful way. You would just have to get an Xbox.
They have pulled Starfield off Playstation and Forza Horizon was never on Playstation…and yet no IP on Playstation has appeared to take their places despite the market being there.
Sony had incentive to make a CoD killer for 17 years now and never did. If Microsoft pulled CoD off Playstation I doubt the platform would ever recover.
Pretty sure all of ABK will be Xbox exclusive ASAP and 10 years down the road Call of Duty shall follow.
I’m not really sure what leap of logic gets those conclusions, but if they were true (they’re not) then the deal should honestly be blocked (I don’t think it should).
Some game would come along and fill that void on Playstation, and bring cross-platform would likely result in pulling players from CoD so folks can play with their friends.
And Playstation taking a hit leads to increased competition. Xbox would be more competitive and Playstation would be forced to innovate and invest in order to retain marketshare. Its literally a pro-competitive situation for gaming.
