Yes, Microsoft Still Plans to Bring Call of Duty Day One on Game Pass

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Microsoft will announce at its upcoming Xbox Games Showcase on June 9 that the next installment of the Call of Duty franchise will be available on day one on Game Pass. Microsoft already revealed that it will hold “a special deep-dive into the next installment of a beloved franchise” right after its Xbox Game Showcase, and this is obviously going to be about the next Call of Duty game.

Since Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October, 2023’s Diablo IV is the only ABK game that Microsoft brought to the Game Pass library. This raised questions about the availability of Call of Duty games on the service, even though Xbox execs said multiple times that future Activision Blizzard games would come on day one on Game Pass.

“Our intent is the full portfolio of games from ZeniMax, Activision Blizzard and XGS—Xbox Game Studios—will be on Game Pass, day one,” Microsoft Gaming President Phil Spencer told Game File’s Stephen Totilo back in February. Last week, Xbox President Sarah Bond reiterated in an interview with Bloomberg that Microsoft would continue to release all of its first-party games “across the whole slate” on Game Pass on day one.

So yes, this is not exactly new. But because Call of Duty is one of the biggest annualized game franchises on the market, there have been concerns about Game Pass cannibalizing game sales. Well, this is certainly going to happen on Xbox consoles, even though Microsoft should still be happy to see more Xbox users subscribe to Game Pass to play Call of Duty on day one.

Game Pass subscriptions went from 25 million in January 2022 to 34 million in February 2024, which isn’t the explosive growth that Xbox execs were forecasting during the pandemic. Leaked documents from FTC v Microsoft trial revealed that Microsoft expected to have over 100 million Game Pass subscribers by 2030. Spencer even suggested during the trial that Microsoft could exit the gaming business if the number of Xbox Game Pass subscribers doesn’t increase enough by 2027.

While it remains to be seen if future Call of Duty games coming on day one on Game Pass will boost subscriptions, Microsoft will continue to sell these games at full price on other platforms. The company also signed a 10-year deal with Nintendo to bring back Call of Duty games to the company’s consoles, but this will likely have to wait for the successor the Nintendo Switch, which is expected to be announced within the year.