Call of Duty is still not coming to Xbox Game Pass despite the acquisition deal
If you’re an Xbox fan patiently waiting for Call Of Duty on Xbox Game Pass, you’re going to have to wait a bit longer.
Despite Microsoft winning its legal battle with the FTC to get the Activision Blizzard deal approved, it still hasn’t been finalized as the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is yet to sign off on the merger.
Xbox is currently in the process of securing a deal with Ubisoft to speed the CMA’s decision along. The deal would hand Xbox streaming rights over to the Assassin’s Creed developer in the UK, hopefully negating the CMA’s concerns over the deal monopolizing competition in the UK market.
While the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer is confident the deal will go ahead as planned, he’s now warning fans that it might be a while before we finally see Activision Blizzard games added to the Xbox Game Pass lineup.
Spencer said: “There is actually work to do to move games to Game Pass. People think the deal closes, and it’s all on Game Pass. That’s not true. It will take us time to get the games on Game Pass.” This means titles like Call Of Duty, Overwatch, and others won’t be joining the lineup anytime soon, but the door is open for them to be added once everything is finished. Xbox has made it abundantly clear that while Call Of Duty is planned to join Game Pass, the series won’t become an Xbox exclusive, and has signed a deal with PlayStation to keep it on multiple platforms.
In other news, a new report claims Xbox was bluffing when it announced it was considering pulling Activision Blizzard games from the UK market to finalize the deal quicker. Insider sources said they never intended to go through it, and were just trying to push the FTC into reacting with a legal battle it wasn’t prepared for.
This tactic seemingly succeeded, as the FTC was unable to prove the Activision Blizzard deal was harmful to competitors in the gaming market.
