An advert for Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has a disclaimer for the ages, as Microsoft tries to reverse a message around Xbox Game Pass.
After Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in 2023, the company announced it would launch new Call Of Duty titles, starting with 2024’s Black Ops 6, day one on Xbox Game Pass. It was an attempt to give the subscription service a growth spurt, at a time when subscriber numbers had stagnated.
Fast forward two years later, and Xbox’s Call Of Duty experiment failed to move the needle. In April this year, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced a price cut to Xbox Game Pass, with the caveat that future Call Of Duty titles will no longer be available on the service at launch.
It’s a flip reversal that’s emblematic of Xbox’s failings as a company over this current console generation. On the bright side though, it’s resulted in some comically awkward marketing – and we’re not just talking about the ‘This Is An Xbox’ adverts.
As shared on ResetEra, adverts for Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 on Facebook carry an awkward ‘not on Xbox Game Pass this year’ disclaimer. You might think this would be written in smaller text, but it’s even bigger than the ‘pre-order now’ logo, almost as if Xbox is treating it as a selling point.
Clearly, Xbox felt the need to hammer this point home to stop any confusion among fans who might now expect Call Of Duty games on Game Pass. It’s understandable, but also a messy reflection of the situation Xbox has found itself in.
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As a reminder, Call Of Duty has been bleeding players for years and not only did the decision to make new releases day one Game Pass titles not improve things, but it no doubt ate into traditional sales of new Call Of Duty games.
It’s also telling that Xbox has given up on this approach after only two games: Black Ops 6 and last year’s Black Ops 7. It didn’t help that the latter wasn’t a good game either and performed so poorly that Activision publicly apologised for it.
One thing that hasn’t changed is the promise of early access to Modern Warfare 4’s campaign for anyone who pre-orders the game. Although Modern Warfare 4 is scheduled to launch October 23, pre-ordering it means you can start playing the campaign as early as October 16.
Furthermore, while Modern Warfare 4 may not be available on Game Pass at launch, the plan is to instead add it to the service about a year later ‘during the following holiday season’ according to Sharma.
This will be the case for subsequent Call Of Duty games so whenever a new one releases, the previous one will become available for Game Pass subscribers.
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