For years, Microsoft employees have enjoyed a perk that gives them free subscriptions to Game Pass Ultimate, and that benefit was on track to be discontinued until Xbox boss Phil Spencer stepped in and saved the day.
17.10.2023 - 20:39 / theverge.com / Tom Warren / Phil Spencer / Xbox Game
By Tom Warren, a senior editor covering Microsoft, PC gaming, console, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joining The Verge in 2012.
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Xbox chief and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has confirmed that Activision Blizzard games aren’t coming to Xbox Game Pass anytime soon. In the latest official Xbox podcast, Spencer confirms there’s not going to be a big drop of Activision Blizzard games into Xbox Game Pass in the coming weeks and that we won’t see any until 2024.
Here’s what Spencer had to say:
The regulatory process took so long… that we weren’t able to get in and work with the Activision Blizzard on that back catalog work. Now that the deal is closed, we’re starting that work, but there is work. I think the Activision Twitter handle… did put out something that talked about 2024, and I think that’s accurate. I would love it if there was some kind of secret celebration drop that’s coming in the next couple of weeks — there’s not.
Activision Blizzard posted on X (formerly Twitter), ahead of the Microsoft deal closing, that Modern Warfare III and Diablo IV both wouldn’t be coming to Xbox Game Pass this year. But it wasn’t clear about the status of older Activision Blizzard games until Phil Spencer’s clarification today.
“I know there will be some disappointment about that,” admits Spencer. “This acquisition is definitely long-term, so the fact that we’re not hitting day one with a bunch of games dropping in to Game Pass is a little bit of a downer, but I’m very excited about the future. And I just want to be straight with people that that’s where we are.”
Many Xbox fans had expected Microsoft to drop older versions of Call of Duty onto Xbox Game Pass almost immediately. Windows Central also reported last week, based on sources, that it expected to “see a ton of new games hit Xbox Game Pass the very minute the deal is finalized.” That report has since been updated to clarify it was a “misinterpretation of the facts.”
Some of the expectation for Xbox Game Pass additions was based on the way Microsoft dropped 20 Bethesda games into Game Pass just two days after its acquisition closed. Microsoft also went out of its way to fix classic Xbox 360 Call of Duty titles in July, just ahead of the original Activision Blizzard deal deadline. Players had been complaining for years about not being able to matchmake in games like Call of Duty: Black Ops and the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and this suddenly got fixed by Microsoft over the summer.
There’s clearly integration work ahead for Activision Blizzard games on Xbox Game Pass, and some of the regulatory
For years, Microsoft employees have enjoyed a perk that gives them free subscriptions to Game Pass Ultimate, and that benefit was on track to be discontinued until Xbox boss Phil Spencer stepped in and saved the day.
By Tom Warren, a senior editor covering Microsoft, PC gaming, console, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joining The Verge in 2012.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer wasn't aware of the changes and is now looking into it.
Most Microsoft employees will soon lose access to a perk of the job that offers them a free Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription.
By Tom Warren, a senior editor covering Microsoft, PC gaming, console, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joining The Verge in 2012.
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For gamers, one of the most alluring possibilities created by Microsoft's finally-completed acquisition of Activision Blizzard is the prospect of games like Call of Duty, Diablo, and Overwatch on Game Pass. Microsoft's subscription service is already a hell of a deal, and adding annualized iterations of Call of Duty plus everything Blizzard does makes it even more attractive. And it will no doubt happen eventually, but not anytime soon: Activision said last week that its games won't arrive on Game Pass until 2024 at the earliest, and in a recent interview with the Official Xbox Podcast, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said that timeline is «accurate.»
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Call of Duty and other Activision Blizzard games won't appear on Xbox Game Pass until next year. On the Official Xbox Podcast, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer claimed that players wouldn't be seeing a big drop of those titles immediately, due to the lengthy regulatory challenges the company faced in its buyout attempt. Since it was uncertain whether the acquisition would be approved by Britain's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) until recently, Xbox wasn't able to do the groundwork for adding the catalogue to their gaming subscription service. Ahead of the deal's closure, Activision Blizzard confirmed on Twitter that the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and newly-launched Diablo IV won't be coming to Game Pass soon, but Spencer's statement covers older titles as well.