Microsoft has finally cleared the air on what they can do with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 marketing. Or did they?
As many fans noted, the game released its first official Day One Game Pass trailer. This means that the trailer explicitly states that the game will be on Game Pass, and playable on the subscription service Day One.
Now, some fans may not really understand how this was a big deal. Didn’t Xbox President Sarah Bond already say that every 1st party Microsoft game is coming to Game Pass? And didn’t she also clearly state that that would be Day One Game Pass?
She did say that, in May of this year. Subsequently, Microsoft had a new trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 in this year’s Xbox Games Showcase that stated that the game will be playable Day One on Game Pass at the end of the trailer. So that rumor was debunked, right? Some fans definitely thought so.
But if you go back to the rumor when it first surfaced in an episode of the Iron Lords Podcast, the rumor was not that they can’t talk about it at all. As Parris Lilly explained, the rumor was Microsoft could not do a big marketing push for Day One Game Pass.
So they couldn’t do the kind of marketing for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 where you would hear Game Pass being brought up every other minute, and Parris said it was ‘due to various reasons’. Parris later clarified that this was off the record talk with various developers, but he didn’t hear it from anyone at Activision or Xbox.
The developers Parris was talking to also believe that Call of Duty’s debut on Game Pass would have a huge impact on the service. In fact, we later reported on a new rumor from a separate source that Microsoft expects Call of Duty to increase Game Pass subscriptions again.
Of course, we cannot end this without discussing Game Pass Standard, the new tier that added online multiplayer, but no longer guarantees that Xbox games are added to the library on the same day they launch. While Xbox fans were dismayed at the potential confusion around the Day One Game Pass marketing, this was a more honest deal than the prior Game Pass for Console tier.
The old Game Pass For Console tier had the Day One Game Pass library, but no online play. To get online play, subscribers would either have to upgrade to Game Pass Tier, or add a subscription to Game Pass Core. And adding Game Pass for Console + Game Pass Core would have cost more than Game Pass Ultimate.
We know all of this doesn’t really feel that important, if you’re not subscribed to Game Pass at all. But Microsoft nailing all of this right could make the difference between Game Pass gaining hundreds to thousands of subscribers.
So, why did Microsoft make this Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Game Pass trailer now? It’s possible that something could have changed from when that rumor first came up. For example, if Sony was pressuring Microsoft about prior commitments Activision made, either those commitments expired or Microsoft chose not to honor them anymore.
Whatever the reason, we can see that Microsoft is not being conservative about the next Call of Duty’s marketing at all. When those hardcore Call of Duty fans see more and more advertising like this, they may just be swayed to get a Game Pass subscription, or even a new Xbox.
You can watch this new trailer below.
