Support NeoGAF

[ManaByte]

Edit: It’s official:

Play Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Day One with Xbox Game Pass - Xbox Wire

We're excited to confirm that Game Pass members will be able to jump into Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on day one.

news.xbox.com

Multiple people getting the notification (outside the US).

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

Play Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Day One with Xbox Game Pass - Xbox Wire

We're excited to confirm that Game Pass members will be able to jump into Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on day one.

news.xbox.com

It's hidden for now but you get the point

 

[FingerBang]

I imagine this was supposed to go out next week lol
Interested to see what the price raise will be

 

[ManaByte]

I imagine this was supposed to go out next week lol
Interested to see what the price raise will be

 

[Zones]

Well then...

 

[Radical_3d]

To think that this was in doubt speaks volumes about the lack of trust Xbox owners have in the managing team. Whatever the loss in sales is it’d be worst if they didn’t do it.

 

[Kenneth Haight]

 

[Certinty]

Credit where it's due. this has to be one of the only half decent things Xbox has done in quite some time.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

To think that this was in doubt speaks volumes about the lack of trust Xbox owners have in the managing team. Whatever the loss in sales is it’d be worst if they didn’t do it.

Was it in doubt from Xbox owners?
No doubt here.

Good winter for Gamepass - Indy, Avowed and Blops.

 

[ManaByte]

Was it in doubt from Xbox owners?
No doubt here.

Good winter for Gamepass - Indy, Avowed and Blops.

Going to sell a lot of discounted Series S to casuals who play sports and CoD with a 3 month Game Pass pack-in. They'll buy it for College Football/Madden and then be able to play BLOPS6 with it.

 

[feynoob]

HeisenbergFX4

 

[Gaiff]

If COD doesn't boost Game Pass subscriptions, then the service will be on a timer.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

Going to sell a lot of discounted Series S to casuals who play sports and CoD with a 3 month Game Pass pack-in. They'll buy it for College Football/Madden and then be able to play BLOPS6 with it.

Maybe, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the marketing - I believe that Sony's marketing deal runs up to the current game. A £$€250 box with a sub for those games is a pretty good deal.

 

[TrebleShot]

Lol was this ever in doubt? they could make it day one on plus also or make it free to play and it would make billions.

In fact, why arent these games F2P with a campaign every other year or something that you pay 30 for?

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

If COD doesn't boost Game Pass subscriptions, then the service will be on a timer.

The noticeable price bump is inevitable so let's see how the numbers will land in the end.

 

[.hacked]

Let me hook this Xbox back up….


lol

 

[ManaByte]

Maybe, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the marketing - I believe that Sony's marketing deal runs up to the current game. A £$€250 box with a sub for those games is a pretty good deal.

It doesn’t appear that BLOPS6 falls under the deal otherwise MS couldn’t be promoting it the way they are right now.

 

[ManaByte]

In fact, why arent these games F2P with a campaign every other year or something that you pay 30 for?

COD is F2P. The campaigns and non-Warzone MP are just $70 DLC in COD HQ.

 

[Clintizzle]

Nice. Now the rest of the Activision catalogue pls.

 

[Clear]

Really do not see how this is sustainable. Its all very well saying this will create x more subscriptions when its going to gouge a huge chunk out of launch revenue and in the final analysis is just a value-add to GP.

 

[skneogaf]

I just saw it too

 

[LordBritish]

Just upped my Gamepass ultimate 2 more years for about $60 using the India vpn and Eneba deal, good to go

 

[Jibran#one]

Jesus christ this is probably the biggest game on gp ever.
I assume this is on pc gamepass aswell so only Playstation people need to buy this.
Huge w for gp

 

[ManaByte]

Just upped my Gamepass ultimate 2 more years for about $60 using the India vpn and Eneba deal, good to go

Target has 3 month cards on sale recently. Stacked to 2027.

 

[Robb]

I have zero interest in this, but it’ll be interesting to see if it’ll manage to push GamePass subs.

 

[Chuck Berry]

Going to sell a lot of discounted Series S to casuals who play sports and CoD with a 3 month Game Pass pack-in. They'll buy it for College Football/Madden and then be able to play BLOPS6 with it.

Casuals already own their system of choice by now.

It’ll be interesting to see how this moves the sales needle for the consoles though (and I doubt it will since see above).

 

[midnightAI]

Really do not see how this is sustainable. Its all very well saying this will create x more subscriptions when its going to gouge a huge chunk out of launch revenue and in the final analysis is just a value-add to GP.

It won't make much of a difference, PlayStation owners will still buy it, subs may increase slightly just to people renewing who haven't renewed in a while, but they will then lose money on XBox game sales as there's now 'free' with Gamepass, but most sales will be on PS and PC anyway.

 

[TrebleShot]

COD is F2P. The campaigns and non-Warzone MP are just $70 DLC in COD HQ.

Does anyone actually play Warzone? thought it was just a lockdown thing.

 

[Calverz]

Superb. The main reason I wanted the Abk merger to go ahead. Phil delivers once again. Just superb like.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Going to sell a lot of discounted Series S to casuals who play sports and CoD with a 3 month Game Pass pack-in. They'll buy it for College Football/Madden and then be able to play BLOPS6 with it.

Casuals already have Series S or a Playstation. If you play only CoD it's way cheaper to just buy it outright instead of paying for GP.

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

Jesus christ this is probably the biggest game on gp ever.
I assume this is on pc gamepass aswell so only Playstation people need to buy this.
Huge w for gp

1. Subscription creep is real
2. GP on PC is such a joke it's easier just to pay for a game upfront. D4 GP release on PC was a proper mess where BattleNet integration was brought by an entire set of crotches.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

Casuals already own their system of choice by now.

Casuals already have Series S or a Playstation.

How come Sony and Microsoft are still trying to sell consoles then? Who are they selling them to?

 

[ManaByte]

Casuals already have Series S or a Playstation. If you play only CoD it's way cheaper to just buy it outright instead of paying for GP.

COD is $70. You can get three month GP cards for as low as $35.

 

[peish]

Do people still buy and play annual cod? Are these games evolving and having better mechanics with yearly iterations? What happens to last year mp?

I don’t get the hype. In the older days, our mp games purchases last longer.

 

[diffusionx]

RIP COD

It's about time.

 

[Sanepar]

The only diff this will make: xbox players will not buy cod anymore. I bet gamepass numbers will stay flat.

 

[Sanepar]

COD is $70. You can get three month GP cards for as low as $35.

So in 1 year u will pay the double to rent.

 

[ManaByte]

So in 1 year u will pay the double to rent.

In a year the next COD will be out and no one will be playing this one anymore.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

HeisenbergFX4

 

[Mr Reasonable]

Really do not see how this is sustainable. Its all very well saying this will create x more subscriptions when its going to gouge a huge chunk out of launch revenue and in the final analysis is just a value-add to GP.

I'm also not sure how the economics stack up - but I think there's potential for a decent argument for it to make sense for the business.

Firstly that COD will make lots of revenue from microtransactions. That business is unaffected.
Secondly, that most people put most of their time into COD's multiplayer.

So, while people may well buy a month of GP to play the campaign and never touch it again, the bulk of COD's players must be looking at getting at least a few months of play on the multiplayer. If you can get someone who would only play COD on their console to sign up for 6 months of Gamepass (at RRP) then they get more money than they would for just selling the game. At about 4 months you're breaking even.

So the questions are:

How much revenue is lost by current gamepass subscribers not buying the game who would have otherwise?
How many people who'd buy the game purely for the campaign will now just buy a month of Gamepass instead?

And I definitely can't guess at what those numbers might be. But, Activision and Microsoft will have the data on how many people sign up for a month to play one game, how many people play COD's campaign and not the multiplayer, how many people play COD that don't have a gamepass sub, and how many do.

What's intangible is how many people this could tip the scales for to convince people to either subscribe to Gamepass and Xbox, because there are enough reasons to go with it. Perhaps you want to play Starfield, Indy, Avowed and COD. All that for $140 for the year, plus whatever other couple of hundred games Microsoft might offer you isn't a bad deal at all.

 

[Topher]

Going to be interesting seeing the ABK numbers the quarters after.

 

[FunkMiller]

They'll have to substantially raise the price of GP to off-set the grotesquely huge amount of money they'll lose to sales.

Imagine if this only raised GP subscriptions by a few million...

 

[Mr Reasonable]

So in 1 year u will pay the double to rent.

A year of gamepass doesn't make sense in order to play one game, I don't think anyone would argue that.

But if a year of gamepass is $140 and COD is $70, you only need to play a couple of games on top to be saving money.

 

[Clear]

It won't make much of a difference, PlayStation owners will still buy it, subs may increase slightly just to people renewing who haven't renewed in a while, but they will then lose money on XBox game sales as there's now 'free' with Gamepass, but most sales will be on PS and PC anyway.

Yeah, but I just meant that mathematically I cannot see this working out. The reality is that its going to cost sales, and even a small percentage drop on such a big selling franchise is a lot of money. And to what end? Hooking people into the Xbox ecosystem... how's that going to look when the business model utilized with CoD is based on long-term spending specific to its own inbuilt storefront? Its like a subscription inside of a subscription!

And then of course there's the overall impact on the economics of GP generally. The idea is that the revenue gets divided up amongst all titles on the service, how does sticking CoD in there front and centre impact that? Its a service franchise ffs.

Sorry, but this seems like a recipe for disaster to me.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

In a year the next COD will be out and no one will be playing this one anymore.

Its the people who mainly play the campaign or those who get tired of it after 2 months, now they can get COD out of their system for the price of a couple months of Gamepass

 

[Sanepar]

A year of gamepass doesn't make sense in order to play one game, I don't think anyone would argue that.

But if a year of gamepass is $140 and COD is $70, you only need to play a couple of games on top to be saving money.

But cod players play cod. They buy consoles for cod.

 

[Complistic]

Sweet, when I do play COD, I'm usually bored of it in a month anyway.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

But cod players play cod. They buy consoles for cod.

So, what you're saying is that for COD players, they'll just buy the game, because that's the cheapest way to get that one game. I agree.

But for everyone else, including me, Gamepass just got a bit better. I now get to play COD as part of the subscription I've got already.
For people who have been tempted to get a Gamepass sub, but who weren't going to buy COD, Microsoft just made the deal better.

Seems like a win for some people and no losses?

 

[BlueLyria]

Hope ABK/MS invests in severe anti cheat measures, if mp was already full of cheaters at 70 USD, can't imagine how bad it's gonna be at a lower price point

 

[midnightAI]

Yeah, but I just meant that mathematically I cannot see this working out. The reality is that its going to cost sales, and even a small percentage drop on such a big selling franchise is a lot of money. And to what end? Hooking people into the Xbox ecosystem... how's that going to look when the business model utilized with CoD is based on long-term spending specific to its own inbuilt storefront? Its like a subscription inside of a subscription!

And then of course there's the overall impact on the economics of GP generally. The idea is that the revenue gets divided up amongst all titles on the service, how does sticking CoD in there front and centre impact that? Its a service franchise ffs.

Sorry, but this seems like a recipe for disaster to me.

I just think they'll make enough money from PS and PC that it wont really matter, you arent suddenly going to see masses of people changing to XBox to play this game (actually, that would indeed be disastrous for them, ironically)

These are games they release every year, they dont cost a vast amount to make as they are just regurgitating the same stuff, so making $X hundreds of millions every year is fine for them, if they lose 10% due to XBox Gamepass it isnt a big deal. (actually, scrap that, is this coming to PC Gamepass also? that could change things)