Call of Duty in Game Pass: What does it mean for the players?

by Hargeet Chani

Microsoft in 2022 made the bold decision to acquire Activision/Blizzard/King for $68.7B, and after a prolonged global fight with various regulatory bodies, finalized the acquisition in October of 2023.  This acquisition changed the “game” in the gaming world in which Sony’s PlayStation brand has been leading the charge as the dominant platform. 

Sony’s PlayStation and Call of Duty: A Historical Overview

PlayStation has been leveraging their partnership with Activision since 2014 to make PlayStation the home of Call of Duty, one of the largest franchises in gaming, developed and published by Activision and released on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC for the mainline annual releases.  In addition, Activision has a free to play edition named Warzone that is on the afore mentioned platforms along with Android and iOS.  PlayStation worked with Activision to make some Call of Duty in game content exclusive to their own platform, excluding players from other platforms from that content.  The marketing deal for Call of Duty has helped PlayStation be the standard home for Call of Duty over the last decade. 

Before that, it was Xbox that partnered with Activision to bring Call of Duty to prominence.  The Xbox 360 was the place to play shooter games, and Call of Duty became one of the biggest with the rise to dominance of the Xbox 360.

Xbox Game Pass: The New Home for Call of Duty

Xbox, after the acquisition of Activision/Blizzard/King, has pledged to add Call of Duty games day and date into their high consumer value subscription service, Game Pass.  This will allow subscribers to the service to access the mainline Call of Duty games day and date of release on Xbox and PC going forward further increasing the value of the Game Pass service which already boasts all 1st party games day and date of release into the service which now includes all Xbox Game Studios games, Bethesda games, Activision games, Blizzard games, and perhaps with a future mobile offering, could include King games as well (unless we see these mobile games come to PC/Console).  In addition, Xbox has pledged to release Call of Duty with feature parity across all platforms.

With the addition of Call of Duty to Game Pass, Microsoft and its Xbox gaming division is hoping to attract more gamers to their Xbox platform, but more importantly to their Game Pass subscription service on console and/or PC.

Game Pass Subscription Tiers and Recent Changes

Game Pass has gone through some changes recently.  While Xbox works towards stabilizing the service for the console space where Xbox head Phil Spencer believes that they have reached their expected attach rate for Game Pass subscribers, Xbox has added and removed tiers, and increased prices of their existing tiers.

Game Pass started in 2017 with a few back catalog games, promising a selection of around 100 games.  Game Pass was for console only, and did not include access to play games online, still requiring Xbox Live Gold for that.  In 2018, Xbox decided to include all their 1^st party games in the service day and date of release.  In 2019, Xbox introduced both the PC and Ultimate tiers.  PC would focus on Windows PC’s alone with no console access.  Ultimate would include Xbox Live Gold, Console and PC Game Pass, and later added EA Play and access to Xbox’s Cloud Gaming service.  There are some additional perks like in-game content added to the Ultimate tier as well.  In 2023, Xbox replaced Xbox Live Gold with yet another new Game Pass Tier, this time named Game Pass Core. Recently, Xbox has made some further changes to Game Pass, eliminating the Console tier for new users (current subscribers are grandfathered in), instead creating a new tier that now includes online gaming access (Game Pass Core), but removes day and date releases for 1st party games.  This tier will be named Game Pass Standard.  The other tiers (Core, PC, and Ultimate) stay the same, but will increase in price like many of their competitor’s subscription services have (EA, Ubisoft, and PlayStation).

Cost Comparison Across Platforms

With all of that, let’s look at how the addition of Call of Duty in Game Pass will work for players across the various platforms of Xbox, PC, and PlayStation.  For completeness, going on the assumption of a new Nintendo console being released early next year, the costs on that platform will be added as well.

In this table, prices marked in green are under $100, prices marked in yellow are under $150, and the higher ones are in red.  In the case of discounted annual costs for Game Pass, Xbox themselves only offer an annual price for Game Pass Core at $75/year.  In this comparison, however, the costs are based on discount codes commonly available through retailers online like CDKeys or Enaba.com.  PlayStation pulled out of the retail market for PS Plus several years ago, and hence discounts are only available directly from PlayStation.  A PS Plus Essentials subscription is needed to play Call of Duty multiplayer on PlayStation just like Game Pass Core is required to play multiplayer on Xbox

Value Analysis for Each Platform

Looking at the options, PC and Nintendo come out clearly ahead.  PC Game Pass is slightly more expensive then outright purchasing the game; however, PC Game Pass adds a library of other games along with EA Play. 

If a player isn’t interested in playing at launch, it is possible that the Xbox Game Pass Standard tier may be of interest, though, in the case of Call of Duty, it would be reasonable to assume that a player might want to play closer to launch given it is multiplayer.  COD will likely retain a high number of users throughout the year though, so it is possible this tier would be of interest to some players.

The Ultimate tier of Game Pass offers the game at launch and includes online access to allow playing the multiplayer part of the game.  This tier, discounted, is actually cheaper than purchasing the game outright on Xbox (barring any game sales that drop the price below 69.99).  The Game Pass Ultimate Tier or the purchase option on Xbox is also cheaper than purchasing the game on the PlayStation platform. 

With content parity, the decision is mostly about platform choice and cost.  From the perspective of Xbox, any player on any platform is good for them.  They are continuing to expect high levels of engagement with the franchise and would like to see continued growth of the franchise by putting it on more platforms.  For example, Call of Duty will now be accessible via cloud gaming providers like Boosteroid and Nvidia Geforce Now adding even more options for players to engage with the franchise.

Conclusion

The addition of Call of Duty to Game Pass enhances its value proposition significantly.  However, the ultimate decision rests with you, the gamer.  Will you play Call of Duty on Xbox, PC, PlayStation, or perhaps the next Nintendo console? And if you choose Xbox or PC, will Game Pass be your preferred option?