Announced by MicrosoftCompleted acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and confirmed that Activision Blizzard games such as "Call of Duty" and "Diablo" will be brought to the Xbox Game Pass service. Xbox business head Phil Spencer earlier explained more specific details: it will take at least some time before we can see Activision Blizzard games on the Xbox Game Pass service.
Phil Spencer said that although ZeniMax was successfully acquired in 2021, and Bethesda and related game assets under ZeniMax were acquired, and the game content was added to the Xbox Game Pass service in a very short time, the acquisition of Activision Blizzard took a lot of time to coordinate with various regional regulatory agencies and even court litigation, and there was not enough time to integrate the game content. Therefore, it will take some time before Activision Blizzard's games can be played by more players through the Xbox Game Pass service.
According to Phil Spencer, Microsoft will bring Activision Blizzard games to the Xbox Game Pass service as early as 2024.
However, some market opinions believe that the reason why Microsoft is temporarily not putting Activision Blizzard game content on the Xbox Game Pass service is actually to avoid causing controversy and reduce the risk of regulators or other game companies accusing Microsoft of creating a market monopoly.
In addition to announcing that Activision Blizzard games are expected to be available on the Xbox Game Pass service in 2024, Phil Spencer revealed that he recently visited King's offices in Europe and Activision Blizzard's offices in California. He also mentioned that he hopes to allow more players to rediscover the joy of playing popular classic games from the early days, such as Infocom's pure text adventure game "Zork" released in the 1970s and the later graphic adventure game "King's Quest" series created by Sierra.
In addition, Phil Spencer also reiterated that Microsoft must find a way to succeed in the mobile game market, especially since it has already acquired mobile games such as "Candy Crush Saga", "Diablo: Immortal", and "Call of Duty: M" through the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. This means that Microsoft currently has a chance of success in the mobile game market. It even did not rule out launching its own mobile game store service.
However, Phil Spencer believes that this does not mean that Microsoft must convert all its games into mobile versions, but it means that Microsoft will have more chips in its current gaming market layout and can invest in development in a diversified form.
