Activision has confirmed they are pricing Call of Duty Modern Warfare III at $ 70.
CharlieIntel shared this statement from Activision via tweet:
“Activision has confirmed that Modern Warfare III is a full premium release and will be priced at $70. There is no upgrade price, and it’s not an expansion.
“As stated in numerous Activision Blizzard quarterly conference calls, Modern Warfare III is a premium release. It will be price accordingly at $70 USD,” an Activision spokesperson tells CharlieIntel.”
This statement seems to be a clear pushback on the online narrative that Call of Duty Modern Warfare III is just Call of Duty Modern Warfare II DLC. In fact, we had just reported on dataminers finding that Call of Duty Modern Warfare III shows up as add-on content for Call of Duty Modern Warfare II on PlayStation’s database, but Activision is saying something else.
If Call of Duty Modern Warfare III really was originally Call of Duty Modern Warfare II DLC, there is a possibility that Activision planned for something huge for Call of Duty Modern Warfare III DLC. Maybe it originally didn’t have enough content to be its own game, but Activision changed their plans relatively recently to take it to that state.
While fans are hung up on the notion that there won’t be enough game in Call of Duty Modern Warfare III to justify that price, we need to look at the bigger picture here. We know that Call of Duty Modern Warfare III will be the last game to be released under Sony’s exclusive marketing contract for the franchise.
We also know now that Microsoft is likely to complete its acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, before Call of Duty Modern Warfare III even releases. However, at the time of Activision’s last financial quarter, they didn’t know that for sure, neither than we did.
Since Activision makes Call of Duty games well in advance, it’s unlikely that 2023 crawled up on them without their knowing so. It is entirely possible that Activision had a completely different game planned for this year, but decided to delay that title, in favor of turning this DLC into the last game under that contract.
Is this what’s best for Activision and Call of Duty? It could be. Whatever game Activision presumably decided to delay internally, could have been delayed to make it the company’s first high profile multiplatform Call of Duty, that will also release on the Nintendo Switch, and cloud gaming platforms.
On the other hand, the idea that Call of Duty Modern Warfare III won’t be good because it was originally Call of Duty Modern Warfare II is way too presumptive. While Activision doesn’t always deliver, their track record with Call of Duty is more good than bad. In fact, that reliability is why it became such a successful annualized AAA franchise.
Perhaps this is based on some console fandom, as Sony fans want to be more vocal about disliking Call of Duty. But that’s completely misguided, as we all know that Call of Duty will continue to be released on PlayStation. Truthfully, we all know in spite of all the complaining, that Call of Duty Modern Warfare III will sell millions of units anyway. Sony will definitely want to squeeze as much as they can with this last chance at marketing for their platform.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare III will be releasing on November 10, 2023, on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows via Steam and on Battle.net.
