An alleged advert for this year’s Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 4, is using the fact that the game isn’t coming day-one to Xbox Game Pass as a selling point.
The alleged ad, which Resetera user CloseTalker claims appeared on their Facebook feed, is promoting the game’s now-annual tradition of offering the game’s campaign early to those who pre-order the game.
However, the ad prominently includes large lettering highlighting that the game is “not on Xbox Game Pass this year”.
Earlier this year, as part of the news that it was cutting the price of Game Pass, Microsoft announced that new Call of Duty titles wouldn’t enter the service until at least a year after they were released.
If authentic, the advert brings into focus the surprising policy change for Microsoft, which paid $68.7 billion for Call of Duty parent Activision Blizzard in 2023 and fought a years-long legal battle against regulators focused on the future availability of the franchise.
When Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, including Call of Duty in Game Pass was intended to be a key driver of new signups. However, its inclusion in the service reportedly resulted in a loss of sales for the shooter giant.
According to a Bloomberg report, last year’s Game Pass price rises were partly influenced by lost premium sales of Call of Duty games.
2024’s Call of Duty, Black Ops 6, was the first to launch day-and-date on Xbox Game Pass. Although early results were positive, with Microsoft declaring it the biggest CoD launch ever in terms of players, the game saw a sharper post-launch decline than usual.
According to Bloomberg’s sources, Xbox gave up “more than $300 million in sales” of Call of Duty on consoles and PCs last year, due to users playing the games on Game Pass instead.
In the US, Black Ops 7 was the fifth best-selling game of the year – the lowest a Call of Duty game has placed in nearly 20 years.
