Xbox Boss Warns Of Potential Delays With ActiBlizz Titles On Game Pass

If you know for a fact that people will still blow 70 beans on this popular game then.. delaying it for gamepass isn't a bad move but i wont be paying for it out right that's for sure. (Call of Duty)

Gamepass is looking less and less value for money, especially given that I have no interest in Starfield.

Makes sense.

It took a while for Bethesda games to roll out on Game Pass. Even still, not every Bethesda game is on Game Pass PC: Hexen and Heretic are still only available for purchase.

Heck, Doom 2016 is still not available on Game Pass PC (but Doom Eternal is).

@Chaotic_Neutral Yes because other big games like Lies of P and Forza Motorsport and highly anticipated indie Sea of Stars are worth nothing. There are a TON of great games already announced for GamePass even without Activision-Blizzard.

@Kaloudz My thoughts exactly. I'm sure it'll take a while to sort COD, but suspect we'll get some of the 'fun' stuff pretty quickly.

@awp69 Sea of Stars demo was pretty dang good. Playing that one for sure.

All good things come to those who wait.

I expect there's a lot of contracts already in place and deals made causing this. That said i expect Diablo 4 and a premium version of OW2 will be on it within a year.

Of course it isn't going to happen like that.

They have a 'limited' number of Games on Game Pass - many with long term contracts in place to remain on Game Pass for a period of time as well as some games with 'agreements' that can't be uploaded either. It takes time and planning to add games.

Diablo 4 maybe added soon after as another game leaves but I don't expect CoD, certainly not the ones that Sony had agreements on, to come 'immediately' either and as the 'only' new game releasing we know about (MW3) being tied to Sony, that too may not 'launch' into Game Pass day 1.

Obviously games like Diablo 4 can't be added 'Day 1' now as the game has already released and as we saw with the Zenimax deal, we still had to wait for Deathloop and Ghostwire to come to Game Pass because of existing agreements. CoD:MW3 has an 'agreement' in place with Sony so I am not expecting that on Day 1.

Point is, whether you take 'Day 1' to mean the Day MS take over or the Day a game releases, its incredibly unlikely that we will see ABK games on Game Pass on 'Day 1' for a while. Partly because of agreements/deals with 'upcoming' release(s) that prevent them from putting them on GP, and partly because they have a limited number of games and many of them may have contracts to stay on GP for a length of time so no doubt will take time to bring them to Xbox. As for '360' games, they may need to do 'work' to bring them back too via Back Compat and some games have licencing issues too (Spider-man, Transformers, TMNT etc).

Looking at what happened with Zenimax, they didn't bring 'old' games (games released before they took over) that Day and we had to wait until Hifi Rush to get a game made by those Studios to release Day 1 in Game Pass because Deathloop/Ghostwire had 'agreements' to keep them off of Xbox for a year.

@Wheatly that's not what he's talking about. He's saying when the deal closes every single game ABK has isn't gonna be dropped in there all at once. Has nothing to do with future, unreleased games.

@Wheatly

So now we can't even expect all first party titles day and date with retail release?

Phil is talking about the time from closing acquisition to finally being able to put their games on GP. Once dust settles, do expect all ABK games to start launching on GP day one (minus any early access anyone feels like whining about.)

@GamingFan4Lyf

Even still, not every Bethesda game is on Game Pass PC: Hexen and Heretic are still only available for purchase.

Although Bethesda has the publishing rights for Hexen and Heretic on PC, those rights very likely do not include the rights for subscription services.

Those games actually belong to Activision, having both companies under the Xbox banner means they might finally enter Game Pass.

They will drip feed them on monthly, make it last longer than one big ‘dump’

@somnambulance I did some research on Activision.

When you look at its history, much of the 80's was spend porting games to various platforms and making a fair amount of Atari games, but I don't know how much translate to great IP for modern systems.

The 90's - 2010's were mostly licensed games. There were a couple of original games in there: Interstate series, Gun, etc.

Then, of course, recently all of its studios except one are Call of Duty factories.

Crash didn't start as an Activision IP. Neither did Spyro. Neither did Guitar Hero.

So, yeah, I'd be interested to see what comes of this. Seems most of the viable IP will come from the Vivendi Games acquisition (which brought both Blizzard and Sierra).

I could see Microsoft give DoubleFine a crack Space Quest!

@Tharsman Maybe, though it seems odd that Quake 4 is there which was both developed by Raven Software and published by Activision.

Licensing is weird.

@GamingFan4Lyf it does not matter who developed it. Quake is an IP that belonged to iD and was owned by Zenimax/Bethesda.

Hexen as an IP is owned by ABK.

@Tharsman Id Software must have let Raven Software keep the IP for those games, then.

Different time, I guess, as these days, the publisher is the one who holds the IP unless sold back to the developer.

UPDATE: So during an interview at QuakeCon back in 2016, someone at Id Software said that it holds the publishing rights to the first 3 games (Heretic, Hexen, and Hexen II), where Activision has the development rights.

Now things could have changed since 2016 and Bethesda just let it go, but it does reinforce that licensing is weird!

I'm guessing Microsoft just wanted to avoid legal to have them on Game Pass - and yes, having them under one roof does solve the issue.

Part of this will no doubt have to do with licensing rights. Like any licenced musical tracks will need to be addressed before they can be added to the service. The more complex the rights situation of a game the longer it will take to hit gamepass.

@somnambulance Yes, give me Boxing, Skiing, Oink!, and Ice Hockey in 4K Dolby Vision with Dolby Atmos! LOL!

@GamingFan4Lyf Raven Software never belonged to iD. As far as I understand, they were contracted to work on Quake 4, but Hexen and Heretic was their own doing. They did license the doom engine to make the game, but it was their game.

I like gaming community it's a brilliant one. Where every single thing said is taken out of context to sate one's lust for complaining about every God damn thing.

@Tharsman But it was published by Id Software. Raven Software was bought by Activision in 1997.

Which, again, is probably why Activision had the right to develop new games in the series, but Id Software (well, now Bethesda) had..at least through 2016..publishing rights to the first 3 games.

It all sounds like a legal mess that will soon get rectified.

@Chaotic_Neutral
What do you have interest in? Which games currently do you play and which upcoming games are you looking forward to?

As long as the old games from Royal Games return to the Royal Games site I am happy but if the games get shifted somewhere else I won’t be happy

I was hoping for diablo coming to game pass. As I wanted to try the game and see if I might like it.

But my GP probably will expire in September and I have no plans to renew it atm.

@AlexAtwell Well I expect you to be Disappointed because RoyalGames isn't a separate or independent hosting site - it was King.Com who still has King.Com and doesn't need to keep paying to run a hosting website that they themselves shut down in Dec 2021.

Yes I KNOW you can access the site as an existing 'member' to remove any funds, but for the general public, its a 'dead' site. Even as a Member, the games are 'removed' so why bring back something King themselves deemed unnecessary and therefore closed it themselves.

It makes NO sense for Microsoft either to resurrect a DEAD site where everything has been 'removed' and I bet the vast majority of 'members' have left and/or have 'no' reason to go to.

It doesn't matter if you have to load up King.com to play Kings games now instead of RoyalGames.com. Its just a hosting site. If you have to go to King.Com, Microsoft.com, Bing.com or a different 'website', what difference does that make?

Its like saying you don't want to watch Big Brother on Channel 5 and hope that they will bring it back to Channel 4. Or can't get your 'Heinz' beans at Sainsbury's and want to buy at Tesco's only. Its just a 'website' that was closed because they decided it was NOT worth keeping so I can't see MS telling King they 'have to' make it work - especially nearly 2yrs after it was 'SHUT'!

I imagine spyro and crash games are relatively early game pass games after closing. Hopefully Tony Hawk doesn't run into any licensing issues. Call of duty is complex, Sony could probably make the case that their marketing deal includes all cod games. They might also be hesitant to drop them all in gamepass and divide everyone between the 14 or however many games.

I'm having low expectations on games based on movie or comic ip ever coming to gamepass but we'll see.

@somnambulance @GamingFan4Lyf That's the winner right there! Pitfall with some sweet Dolby audio. The rope swing?!?

@BAMozzy He is obsessed with Royal Games in almost every thread relating to the acquisition wouldn't spend much time there lol.

@ZuneTattooGuy I cancelled my sub because these last few months have been dull, just loads of indies (which I prefer ro play on Switch) since Exoprimal, which got boring fast and is pretty dead already looking at the lack of LFG posts.

I'm really looking forward to Stalker 2 but it keeps getting delayed and Silksong which is MIA again.
My favourite genre is Looter shooters so I have gone back to play warframe until something worrhwhile drops because I don't need a sub for that

@lechugajr Don't forget 120fps!

@Chaotic_Neutral Tried Outriders? Not booted up my X in a bit due to work but I believe its still on GP and should float your boat for looter shooters.

@somnambulance I wonder what the framerate of a native PC port of the original Pitfall! would be if it was uncapped. 🤔

@Wheatly where did you read anyone claim CoD games would not come to GP for two years? When the whole thing started, Sony had the marketing rights for CoD for a couple of years. This is their last year.

Sony wanted to scrap that marketing deal, but given the timing its likely they got stuck with it. Either way, we are talking just one more year tops. Not as bad as having the game entirely skip the platform for a year, as it was with Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo.

@Jaxx420 I know. Its almost as if their whole world will collapse if that 'dead' site isn't resurrected, that its 'more' important than the Games etc.

Its not as if those games are ONLY playable through that website and in closing it, those games will no longer 'exist' or be 'playable'. King themselves set it up and decided to close it down too and as its been closed for nearly 2yrs now and with MS coming in with their 'OWN' sites (could add them to 'Bing.com' as a incentive to use their site instead of Google.com), want their own 'mobile' store to compete with Apple/Android app stores etc and will own 'king.com' too.

If RoyalGames was a developer studio or even a Publisher, I could understand it, but its just Kings 'website' for King to host games on and they decided it wasn't worth keeping themselves so I doubt MS will 'force' them to reopen a dead site because 1 person would be 'disappointed' they have to use a different website.

I know that they keep on and on and on and on and on and on - like a broken record about it in almost every single comment they make and getting angry when anyone tells them its incredibly unlikely that MS will be 'convinced' it makes economic sense when King themselves shut it down.

They aren't going to be looking to 'invest' money in dead websites after spending $70bn to bring ABK into MS and have ABK Games on MS websites, services, stores etc...

@GamingFan4Lyf

But it was published by Id Software. Raven Software was bought by Activision in 1997.

Having publishing rights does not automatically give the publisher ownership. For example, as part of the exclusivity deal, Dead Rising 3's publishing rights are on Microsoft's court. Capcom cant really get that single entry on PlayStation without MS agreement, and it's not like they didn't want to. They remastered every Dead Rising for PS4 except 3.

Sekiro is another game that comes to mind. Was published by Activision, but the IP is still owned by From Software. It's a game that will likely require additional negotiations to go into Game Pass, depending how the publishing contract was written. Basically, if the subscription service rights were not specifically written into the contract, they don't have those rights.

@Tharsman ...and since subscription services didn't exist in 1994, I am guessing Microsoft would have to reach out to Activision to get that amended to include subscription rights since it owns Raven Software?

Well that sounds like no new COD game releases will be on Game Pass for several years then? Kinda makes the merger pointless.

@Chaotic_Neutral Yeah I'll give Starfield a go but my interest in the game has severely lapsed, not excited really for it.

@GamingFan4Lyf Was mostly saying it because of Sekiro, that will technically come under MS umbrella once the ABK acquisition closes.

@Wheatly You are talking about the closing paragraph that links to a 2022 article when it was unknown how long the marketing agreement with Sony was. The Sony agreement is the quoted reason. Today we know "a number of years" ends one year post the launch of this year's Modern Warfare 3. It might actually end sooner if Sony manages, since they seem to want the full 30/70 split over the agreement now that MS will be the one getting the 80% cut (the higher royalties earned by ABK under the marketing agreement).

@Wheatly We don't know what the specifics of the marketing deal are. Think of it like the Zenimax acquisition, not every single zenimax game dropped in there that was previously released, and games like deathloop and ghost wire had a year timed exclusive with Sony so they had to wait. I think people are expecting every single ABK game ever to just show up when the deal closes, while it will most likely come in waves.

Depending on when the COD marketing with Sony is up we will be getting it day and date when that deal is done. We'll just have to wait for confirmation of when, exactly, that is. My guess is after 2023 it's over.

Don't worry though, it's still a win win for everyone.
The gamers will get something out of this merger... Hahahahahaha!

As long as it isn't done stupidly like Nintendo and the ridiculous drip-feed for Virtual Console or whatever their online thing is called.

@FenIsMightier There’s a lot more than just those coming. But do what ever floats your boat. It’s fantastic for me.

It's smart to remind folks games aren't necessarily going to drop on GP day one of the merger. MW is my favorite variant of CoD so I am looking forward to it arriving on GP.

I'm a patient man I'll wait. It's not like all the Bethesda games showed up immediately it took a bit of time for them all to show up.

Call of Duty is one of biggest selling yearly games. If hits Game Pass day 1 i think it no longer be big seller. Surely Microsoft make lots more if Call of Duty not on Game Pass day 1? Deal is day 1 exclusives, Call of Duty not exclusive so maybe we only get old Call of Duty's???

@lordGeesus i sure we got about 20 in just week or so???

Activision still charging ludicrous prices for 12 year old games that are full of hackers, you know for a fact they don't want anything on game pass

@Jaxx420 I played Outriders when it first cane out, it was fun but didn't have much endgame grind if I remember correctly.

There's almost nothing in the activision catalog I'm interested in, I already own Diablo 4, take all the time you need guys.

@GamingFan4Lyf doom 2016 was on game pass before wasn't it? They took it off?

@Lostitall I don’t know if it was on PC side before and then removed. I know since the acquisition, it has not been there.

I know the console version was there, then it was removed., then returned after the acquisition.

The only thing I was interested in with this desk was COD coming day and date, as that isn’t going to happen, most likely due to deals with other platforms, then I couldn’t care less if it’s successful or not. My internet is lost in it. Just building up for to be honest, this plus the awful new dashboard. And I’m not bothered by Starfield. Hmm if COD comes to Nintendo next platform and it’s a hybrid again I may trade my Series X in for it!

@GamingFan4Lyf oh okay yea I only use game pass on console and don't really know anything about the PC version. I guess I just assume it's damn near equal but I guess I makes sense some has things the other does not.

Microsoft is finding reasons to lose consumers and they are being very successful. I have been with Microsoft this whole run, even Windows is going down the tubes with W11. Sounds like they already screwed up the PC version of Forza Motorsport and can't get physics right because of the framerate? I'm sorry, but I just don't have faith in Microsoft anymore.

@FenIsMightier So, because you aren't a gamer anymore, that means Game Pass is a bad value? Sounds like a you problem.

@FenIsMightier Right, cuz "I don't have much time for video games these days, and I've also increasingly lost interest in it as a medium" has all to do with "trash" and not your lack of time/desire to play it... If you are gonna gripe about game quality, at least quantify what quality looks like to you. What you are saying just comes across as smugness when it sounds like you really just have other priorities.

@FenIsMightier Congrats on beating a Wii U game from 10 years ago.