The much-anticipated Call of Duty: A new title in Activision’s first-person shooter franchise, Black Ops 6, will launch on Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass on the day of the game’s release, the publisher said on Tuesday. This helps make it possible for all the Game Pass members to play the game at no additional cost once it is out.
This comes shortly after rumors emerged that Microsoft would be adding the next installment of Call of Duty to Its subscription service. Microsoft’s plan of increasing expenditure to support Xbox Game Pass by acquiring new games from the likes of Call of Duty is to gain more subscribers even though it will hurt direct game sales.
Since Call of Duty is one of the biggest franchises in video gaming globally, inclusion in the Game Pass is set to contribute to a lot of subscription growth.
Currently, Xbox Game Pass has an engaged user base of 34 million users, which is 36% higher than the January 2019 figure.
Nonetheless, the total market for subscription-based gaming has had problems with attracting new sizeable waves of paying customers.
Gross Game Permanents and Eventuals: Notably, the non-mobile game permanent categories nearly met the majority of their growth in spending in March 2024 as opposed to March 2023, growing by only one percent.
Meanwhile, due to Microsoft’s focus on the Game Pass, all its first-party games are launched on the service, and sometimes, consumers avoid buying those games as they can play them on Game Pass for free.
The decision to include Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Game Pass is one of the biggest bets it has made in this subscription model so far. It will be possible to play the game using the subscription services on any of the Xbox devices, computers, and many other gadgets.
Held by Microsoft since it bought the company last year, Activision has thus announced that Call of Duty Black Ops 6 is the next game in this highly popular series.
It will have further details as to when it will be released, but anticipation is that it will be unveiled on June 9, right after the Xbox Games Showcase.
Since the confirmation of the game, Activision has not released much information about it, providing only a few images, a teaser trailer, and a live-action trailer.
The Direct presentation will take place before the end of March, and the game’s trailer will show the first extended gameplay footage – which would seem quite appropriate for a game that promises to deliver a new, dark chapter in the Black Ops narrative.
Earlier in the month, Microsoft shut down some game development studios under Bethesda, including Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin, to focus on the most important projects. Many fans have had a lukewarm welcome for some titles on consoles, but Microsoft still holds the achievement of Game Pass vital in its plans.
Titles like Hi-Fi Rush, which garnered significant player numbers via Game Pass, highlight the platform’s potential to reach a wide audience, a trend Microsoft hopes to replicate with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, a popular and highly acclaimed game release from the Call of Duty series which is developed by Treyarch.
The incorporation of Black Ops 6 on the Microsoft subscription service hints at the improvement of the gaming giant subscription service or even the changing face of the game subscription services in the gaming industry.