Microsoft is rumored to make a huge announcement about its back catalog after its acquisition of Activision Blizzard King.
As reported by Insider Gaming, they hinted at the announcement being related to Call of Duty, but they do not explicitly mention Game Pass. To avoid the pernicious issue of misquoting or misinterpretation, we will share the exact quote from them below:
“Speaking with sources, it’s been said that Xbox is gearing up for an announcement on its back catalog of games following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, too, so Gulf War might not be the only Call of Duty-related announcement that we’ll be hearing in June.”
So, is it possible that this announcement is about something other than Game Pass? We could think of a few things. For example, Microsoft could be announcing rereleases of these games onto new platforms outside of Xbox, such as the very DRM friendly GOG, or the still very much profitable Nintendo Switch eShop. The Switch in particular, has a proven fanbase that goes for older games.
Microsoft could also be tying this to their recent new deal with NetEase for Blizzard. Perhaps some of the classic Blizzard titles, like classic StarCraft, are also making their way to China.
But of course, the heavy speculation around Call of Duty on Game Pass exists for good reason. The moment the deal was announced, Call of Duty and Xbox fans were already pondering the possibility of getting Call of Duty on Game Pass, thereby lowering the barrier to entry for casual Call of Duty fans. They won’t need to pay full price, and some of them won’t even have to get a game console.
This was, of course, a major debating point during the regulation of the Microsoft Activision deal. Microsoft stated in 2022 that they couldn’t actually bring Call of Duty to Game Pass for a while. But of course, the reason for that was the Sony deal for Call of Duty, which did run out by the time Microsoft finalized their deal.
Now, last February, a Microsoft fan named Timdog claimed that Call of Duty might not even make it to Game Pass. Many fans took it for granted that it could be correct, but we do have to point out, Timdog didn’t elaborate on his sources, and no one emerged to back up the claim.
And so here we are, with another reliable source claiming that a new Call of Duty announcement is on the way, and possibly even more. Microsoft could very easily push all Call of Duty titles to Game Pass; they literally have had every game in the series published to Xbox, including Call of Duty 2, which skipped the PlayStation.
But taking the entirety of Insider Gaming’s statement into account, it probably will be more than Call of Duty. In fact, we could be looking at the dawn of a considerably bigger Game Pass in the near future. Remember; Xbox President Sarah Bond recently launched a new division in the company dedicated to video game preservation.
Notoriously, game preservation is popularly associated with video game emulation, and also by association, and perhaps unfairly, piracy. But video game preservation is about more than acquiring a permanent copy of a game.
If Microsoft copies Nintendo’s positioning of Switch Online as a platform to play older games, that makes those games valuable in a new way. It also makes discovery a key element, as gamers try out a ‘new’ old game every few months. In this way, video games can really be revived.
Beyond just being partitioned as part of a giant library of titles people put in their SD cards but never play, reintroducing these games to a new audience, so that they actually play them and become new fans, means they are truly preserved. And that is more vital to online games like Call of Duty. We’ll see if Microsoft meets these expectations in the upcoming Xbox Games Showcase.
