Since Microsoft announced its intentions to buy Activision Blizzard, there’s been plenty of speculation that the publisher’s video game library will eventually end up on Xbox Game Pass. As luck (and $68.7 billion) would have it, that’ll unquestionably be the case.
On Thursday, Xbox boss Phil Spencer made a Microsoft blog post clarifying the company’s intentions with Activision Blizzard’s games.
“While we love consoles, we recognize that they are not the only way that people play games. Today, the largest and fastest-growing segment of gaming is mobile platforms,” Spencer said. “To reach the billions of players where they are and no matter what device they play on, we need to embrace choice.”
“We are expanding choice in two ways: through the creation of Game Pass, which gives players a subscription option; and by bringing more games to mobile platforms, including through our cloud game streaming technology,” Spencer continues. “We intend to make Activision Blizzard’s much-loved library of games – including Overwatch, Diablo, and Call of Duty – available in Game Pass and to grow those gaming communities.”
Several regulatory bodies worldwide have expressed concerns that this merger could be anti-competitive, with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) specifically citing Call of Duty as a means to harm PlayStation potentially. Despite Microsoft stating that it won’t happen already.
“We’ve heard that this deal might take franchises like Call of Duty away from the places where people currently play them,” Spencer explains. “That’s why, as we’ve said before, we are committed to making the same version of Call of Duty available on PlayStation on the same day the game launches elsewhere.”
It makes sense, given Call of Duty is enormous on every platform. Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 are set to arrive on PS4 and PS5 this fall, even.
Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.