Xbox President Sarah Bond has revealed that Microsoft is still set to release every first party title Day One on Game Pass.
As reported on XboxEra, Sarah made this statement in an interview with Bloomberg’s Dina Bass:
“We know our core users love game pass, game pass is a gaming subscription, you get a whole portfolio of games, but importantly you get every single one of the games we build day one in game pass.
And the quality and the breadth of those games has only been going up over time. And you’re going to see some more really big games going into Game Pass later this year.”
When asked if this includes Activision games, Sarah replied:
“Across the whole slate, across the whole slate, you’re going to see some really amazing things. And keeping that as something that is really special for Xbox players is central to us.”
Dina did not mention this in the interview, but the question was obviously in relation to rumors we reported yesterday that Microsoft Gaming as a whole was still debating if they were going to bring Call of Duty to Game Pass or not.
It’s easy to understand why Microsoft would have some hesitation. They would bring the game to Game Pass, with the hope that they could get more gamers to sign up for Game Pass, and increase the overall sales. But there’s a possibility that those sales could be cannibalized by Game Pass subscriptions.
In addition to that is the online discourse around Microsoft, following their decision to close Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks. One one end, many loyal Xbox fans aren’t sure if they can trust the company on its word anymore. They expected to keep getting games from studios like Arkane and Tango after they acquired them. But if these studios can be closed so easily, and seemingly cavalierly, than how can they trust that they’ll still have these studios to make games for them in the future?
There’s another line of reasoning that’s come up as a result of this. Microsoft still doesn’t talk about what metrics they have for success for their studios and games. So the fans are debating if Game Pass will really help said studios. Some people believe that they need to buy some upcoming games, like Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga, because Game Pass won’t make enough revenue to keep its studio, Ninja Theory, safe.
And, of course, a lot of fans feel they were promised Call of Duty on Game Pass. While this statement doesn’t address all gamer concerns, it seems to be the first thing any Microsoft executive has said pushing their fans to keep their trust in them. We’ll see if they can stay true to their word, this time.
