Microsoft has pulled its $1 for 14 days of Game Pass trial ahead of next week's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 release date.
Mirroring a tactic it employed ahead of last year's launch of Bethesda’s Starfield, Microsoft has now made the $1 introductory offer unavailable. It was previously available only to those who hadn’t subscribed to Game Pass before.
Microsoft is clearly hoping to capitalize on the release of Black Ops 6 straight into Game Pass as a day-one title, and it seems likely that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people would have used the $1 offer to blast through the campaign and perhaps dip into Multiplayer and Zombies had it been available. IGN has asked Microsoft for comment.
The Game Pass tiers that include the release of Black Ops 6 are the $19.99 a month Game Pass Ultimate, or, if you’re on PC, the $11.99 a month PC Game Pass. The $14.99 a month Xbox Game Pass Standard tier does not include day-one releases, and so won’t include Black Ops 6.
Black Ops 6 is the first Call of Duty game to launch day-one on Game Pass. It comes a year after Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which has also seen the likes of Diablo 4 and Modern Warfare 3 hit the subscription service, and will see StarCraft: Remastered and StarCraft 2: Campaign Collection arrive in November.
Black Ops 6’s launch straight into Game Pass is a big gamble for Microsoft. It hopes the power of Call of Duty will boost subscriber numbers and revenue (itself bolstered by the recent Game Pass price rise and restructure), but it comes with the risk of losing sales of the full-price game.
While Xbox executives have insisted sales can be boosted by a game’s presence on Game Pass, some publishers remain unconvinced. Former Activision boss Bobby Kotick, for example, was always against putting Call of Duty into subscription services. Unlike Microsoft, console rival Sony does not release its new exclusives straight into its subscription service.
In an interview with IGN last year, Xbox boss Phil Spencer was asked how he’d handle his and Kotick’s different ideologies after the deal to buy Activision Blizzard closed. "Well, there's a different person making the decisions," Spencer laughed.
In August this year, Spencer admitted the pressure is now on Microsoft’s gaming unit to deliver following its acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
“We run a business,” Spencer said. “It’s definitely true inside of Microsoft the bar is high for us in terms of the delivery we have to give back to the company. Because we get a level of support from the company that’s just amazing and what we’re able to go do.”
Microsoft has also cut an eye-watering 2,550 staff from its gaming business since acquiring Activision Blizzard, with multiple studios falling by the wayside.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
