Call of Duty Will Not Come to Xbox and PC Game Pass for “a Number of Years”

In its response to UK’s Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) probe into Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has revealed that Call of Duty games will not be coming to its Game Pass subscription service for “a number of years”.

Referencing a statement by Xbox boss Phil Spencer about Microsoft honouring agreements with Sony to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation, Microsoft has stated that one of the parts of these agreements prevent Call of Duty from coming to Game Pass for a while. PlayStation boss Jim Ryan, however, has called the offer “inadequate”.

“The agreement between Activision Blizzard and Sony includes restrictions on the ability of Activision Blizzard to place Call of Duty titles on Game Pass for a number of years,” says Microsoft’s statement.

This was just one part of a longer statement Microsoft released as a rebuttal to the CMA’s claims that the merger would harm competition in the gaming market.

Another interesting quote from the statement points out that PlayStation has been a definite market leader, and the idea that losing access to one franchise would harm it is “not credible”.

The entirety of Microsoft’s statement can be checked out below.

Microsoft isn't happy with the UK's CMA regulator over its Activision Blizzard acquisition comments. It describes the regulator's concerns as "misplaced" and that it "adopts Sony’s complaints without considering the potential harm to consumers" 👀 🧵 1/3 pic.twitter.com/nIWuVqyvSW

— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) October 12, 2022