Microsoft is about to buy Activision Blizzard – Games are coming to Game Pass

Microsoft is about to deal a heavy blow to the competition. Especially, now that Sony may be amping up to launch its own version of Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service. The company is in the works of acquiring Activision Blizzard, announcing the news via its blog online.

This is going to be another huge deal for the company thanks to the number of successful franchises and studios that are available under its umbrella. Not to mention, it is going to result in some pretty big titles rolling out to the Game Pass subscription service.

So if you are one of many that are disappointed that the Call of Duty series isn’t available via Game Pass, your luck might be changing pretty quickly. 

Microsoft has mentioned that certain games will indeed be rolling out to Game Pass at an unknown time in the future (specifically, “we will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass” — Phil Spencer, CEO, Microsoft Gaming). For now, we can’t say for sure which of these games will be making it into the service. But this news is quite promising.

Some of the franchises under Activision Blizzard include Call of Duty, Warcraft, Starcraft, Overwatch, Diable, Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, Crash Bandicoot, and more. Even Candy Crush is in the mix of it all.

When the deal finishes, it sounds like Bobby Kotick (current CEO of Activision Blizzard) will be stepping down and leaving the company. The company has been littered with troubles surrounding sexual harassment lawsuits, strikes, and other things that have been dragging it through the mud. Hopefully, this acquisition will lead to brighter future for both the company and its employees.

One question to add, is if Microsoft should consider making these games exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem. This would be a much larger blow to competition. It would benefit the company when it comes to making Xbox look enticing, but would noticeably limit the amount of sales these franchises would see as it would lose future players that decide to stick with PlayStation consoles. What do you think? Should Microsoft add these titles to the exclusive list of games for Xbox/PC? Or should it leave things the way they are?

Co-Authors: Ryan S.