Right now Microsoft is trying to finalize the acquisition of giant Activision Blizzard that started last year and looks set to continue through October of this year.
And as it would not be surprising, as it has already happened with Bethesda titles, when the agreement with Activision Blizzard is closed and the company becomes part of Xbox Game Studios, it would be normal to release games like Call of Duty and other Activision Blizzard franchises on Xbox Game Pass.
It's very likely that this will happen with many Activision Blizzard games, but it looks like Call of Duty might left out, according to a new answer from Phil Spencer during an interview with IGN.
Question: “So, will Call of Duty be available as Game Pass after the deal closes?”
Answer: “Yes. About ABK, and I'm going to give a different answer now because of the way you asked the question. I want to make sure people know that there is work to be done to transfer games over to Game Pass. So for those of you who think the deal will close and everything will be out there, this is not true. And that hasn't been true of other acquisitions we've done either.”“We've got work to do, so it will definitely take time to get games into the portfolio. But that has nothing to do with making native games available on Game Pass.”
“This is entirely about the cloud streaming rights to ABK games. ABK refers to Activision-Blizzard-King, but it's really more about Activision and Blizzard as they have pay to play games.”
Phil Spencer was also asked how Xbox and Activision Blizzard will bridge that kind of divide over game subscription services.
“If you're a Triple-A franchise extremely well- successful company that has a marketing budget in the tens of millions to drive day one awareness and discovery of your game, and that's part of your model, I completely understand why you wouldn't immediately put your game on a subscription. I have no problem with that.”