At today’s Xbox Business Update, we’ve gotten hard confirmation that Xbox’s biggest game of the year, the next Call of Duty, will be releasing Day One on Xbox Game Pass.
Spoken by both President of Gaming Content and Studios Matt Booty and President of Xbox Sarah Bond, they’ve reaffirmed that every first-party game will be releasing day one on the Xbox Game Pass subscription.
And all of the games from our incredible range of studios will always launch in Game Pass day one.
Sarah Bond, President, Xbox
With Activision Blizzard King being part of Xbox’s first-party lineup, it’s clear that there are no plans to stagger or limit the release of Call of Duty on the service, contrary to various rumours going around over the last week.
In this same business update, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer, also confirmed this commitment to release all of their games day one on the service as well as being firm that the Game Pass service will be exclusive to Xbox platforms.
I think we at First Party can come back to some core principles– first, that all of our games will be on the Xbox platform. Second, all of our games will go into Game Pass on day one. And third, we know that Game Pass will only be available on Xbox.
Phil Spencer, CEO, Microsoft Gaming
Alongside this year’s Call of Duty, we have other high-profile games releasing directly on the Game Pass service, such as Hellblade II, Avowed, Ara, and more.
Take a look at what we thought about the latest Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 3, below.
This year’s Call of Duty arrives in all kinds of controversy: reports of a rushed development, talks of expansion pack plans turned into a full-priced release, and an unusually structured campaign – without forgetting all that’s been said about Microsoft acquiring the game’s behemoth of a publisher, Activision. But November seems to mean Call of Duty one way or another, so let’s see what’s in store for us in the brand new Modern Warfare 3 – and what this all means for the battle royale Warzone 2.
Győző “FairyEmpire” Baki
Going to save me and friends the yearly CoD expense, very nice.
Huge news. Not having to pay for CoD again is great. Getting it Day 1 too is the icing on the cake. That quality first party releases never stop.
Was there an actual quote that calls out the next COD being in Game Pass Day 1?
Yeah. I will wait. Everything is case by case basis.
Well, they said all the games are coming to Game Pass Day 1. My question is did we get confirmation that the next COD isn’t tied up in some contract preventing it.
I think CoD Game Pass Announcement will be reserved for Showcase, especially when there’s many eyeballs on that. Of course, if they can do it this year.
Personally, if COD can’t get released on Game Pass day one this year due to a legally binding contract, I would think that Microsoft would just say it because I can’t imagine anyone getting mad or upset due to a legal issue. I think the game skips Game Pass because it would be Microsoft’s best selling game since probably Halo 3 on Xbox 360 and I doubt that they would want to pass up that huge amount of revenue.
I’m just asking cuz this post suggested it was confirmed. At least that was my read on this post. So I am curious of the source since there are a few interviews out there.
They say that their games will be going to Game Pass day one but they don’t specifically say COD. We should know at the Showcase in June since im expecting COD 2024 to be revealed at that time.