Microsoft's $70 Billion Bet on Activision: Call of Duty Strategy Faces Major Rethink
In 2023, Microsoft completed the acquisition of Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion. At that time, the American corporation pursued a quite understandable goal — to gain control of the Call of Duty franchise to add the most popular shooter series to the Game Pass catalog and thereby attract a huge number of subscribers.
Practice showed that this plan was not successful — the Game Pass audience increased insignificantly, but at the same time, Call of Duty sales decreased significantly, since two new installments were available on the subscription from day one. As a result, An Era Ends: Xbox Head Phil Spencer Leaves His Position!, the company may reconsider its future strategy.
What is known
Authoritative insider and senior editor of Windows Central Jez Corden in the latest episode of The Xbox Two podcast said that the next part of Call of Duty might not be available on day one in Game Pass. He explained that the new head of the gaming division, Asha Sharma, does not rule out the possibility of refusing to offer subscribers access to the shooter immediately after release, as this model has proven financially ineffective and makes the development of such expensive games unprofitable.
Moreover, because many gamers do not buy shooters and prefer to play by subscription, Activision and its studios do not receive enough funds for extensive content support for games, which in turn leads to the audience quickly losing interest in them.
Corden emphasized that he is not 100% sure of the reliability of the information received, but there is definitely logic in his words, and the unprofitability of the latest Call of Duty installments has been confirmed by many analysts. Although, of course, it should be recognized that Black Ops 7 (2025) turned out to be one of the worst in the series' history, so its failure is not directly related to Microsoft's strategy.
The only question that arises is: why did Microsoft spend $70 billion on Activision Blizzard if the main point of their plan turned out to be a failure…
Source: Insider Gaming
