With Microsoft having recently announced that Call of Duty would no longer show up on any tier of Game Pass on day one, an industry analyst believes that this might only be the beginning. In a LinkedIn post, Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis has offered his thoughts on Microsoft’s recent announcement, and noted that it is likely a “course correction of unsustainable subscription price increases.”
Harding-Rolls has also noted that a 12-month “window” before bringing in a Call of Duty title to the subscription service will “generate significantly more revenue” than a spike in Game Pass subscribers would have. “It will also support sales on PlayStation and other platforms,” he wrote, before going on to mention that this doesn’t necessarily mean that day-one releases of games on Game Pass are dead.
“This is still a core piece of the offer,” he wrote. “However, this opens the door to potential windowing of other new 1st-party releases.” Whether this ultimately means that we might see a year-long delay between the release of, for example, a new Gears of War game and its arrival on Game Pass is currently unknown. However, by doing this with Call of Duty, Microsoft has certainly given itself the window to do so in the future. As for how this will affect the Ultimate tier of Game Pass, which promises day-one first-party releases, remains to be seen.
In a lengthier report, he had noted that the decision to bring Call of Duty to Game Pass likely stemmed from an attempt to “turbo-charge the service” by bringing in more subscribers. However, this has seemingly not been the case, and a game on the scale of Call of Duty was not able to draw in enough new subscribers to offset the revenue lost by simply selling the title. “It meant Game Pass pricing had to be increased to offset some of the commercial implications of the approach, which had its own impact on retention of longer-term subscribers.”
In the meantime, reports have also been going around of Microsoft exploring the potential for a cheaper subscription tier for Game Pass that would only include first-party games. Codenamed “Triton”, this tier is also expected to include Cloud Gaming as one of its core features. However, when compared to the limitless implementation of Cloud Gaming on other tiers, Triton’s version is expected to include a time limit, bringing it in line with Nvidia’s GeForce Now.
More recent reports have indicated that Microsoft’s plans might extend even beyond that, with the potential for a “pick your own plan” option being discussed. According to Windows Central’s Jez Corden, such a plan is apparently “on the table,” and would allow potential subscribers to only pay for the things that they might actually want from the service. Users who don’t play Fortnite, for example, can get rid of the Fortnite Crew benefits. On the flip side, there is also the potential for users to bundle their subscriptions, like those for Minecraft Realms or World of Warcraft. The same rumors also indicate that a Family Plan might be in the works for Game Pass as well.
