It’s been just over a year since Microsoft shattered industry records with its $75 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard — and next week that eye-wateringly expensive deal will face its biggest test yet.

The launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be a key data point, both for Microsoft itself and for outside observers, as they try to figure out the value of the deal and the kind of strategy we’re likely to see from the future. company in the coming years. That’s because Black Ops 6 will be available to premium subscribers of Game Pass at launch – a major coup for Game Pass, but one whose costs and benefits are virtually impossible to predict.

This launch is a milestone in the grand experiment that is Microsoft’s integration of Activision Blizzard and its catalog

It’s not unfair to say that Call of Duty was the Activision IP that Microsoft most desperately wanted; it was this franchise that justified the extraordinary purchase price tag, if it can be justified at all.

However, owning Call of Duty has put the company in a strange position as it now owns a huge franchise that generates a very large portion of its revenue on PlayStation. The fear that Microsoft could make the franchise an Xbox exclusive was never realistic; Even if Xbox leadership wanted to do that, reducing the revenue potential of such an expensively acquired new subsidiary could never be achieved by Microsoft’s top management.

Sony’s deep fear, and the reason why it lobbied competition authorities to block the takeover, was a little more nuanced; it feared that Call of Duty would be exclusive to Game Pass as a subscription title, tilting the competitive landscape by having Microsoft point out that people paying $70 for the game on PlayStation could instead get it ‘for free’ on Game Pass to play.

That’s exactly what happened – and now it’s time to conduct the experiment and test the theory. The performance of this launch, and in particular the impact that day-and-date availability on Game Pass has on sales on other platforms, will be closely watched by both Microsoft itself and its rivals.

To get to the point where we feel comfortable launching Black Ops 6 day-and-date on Game Pass, however, Microsoft will need to make some strategic realignments, and the balancing act it performs is sometimes quite public. It needs Call of Duty to play a big role on Game Pass to grow the subscription service, which is seen as a crucial metric for the success of its overall games business. However, it also needs Call of Duty to make a ton of money, as is always the case, as Xbox is essentially still owed a $75 billion IOU to Microsoft’s coffers and can’t afford to match Activision’s earning potential largest IP on the market. altar of Xbox’s long-term growth.

That’s why we’ve seen price increases and a rebalancing of Game Pass tiers ahead of this launch. Xbox players will need to be on the most expensive $19.99 per month tier to get CoD on launch day, though it will still be available at the $11.99 tier for PC, presumably a concession to a more price-sensitive market. Microsoft has also suspended the $1, 14-day Game Pass trial it normally runs, although this isn’t a new strategy – it did the same before Starfield’s launch and will likely adopt this as a policy for big day-and-dates. date will also be launched in the future.

However, restoring balance was a difficult task; it was (naturally enough) unpopular with consumers and perhaps risky to do at a time when Game Pass’ growth seems to be struggling to get past a plateau phase. However, for CoD to become a Game Pass title, the company had to be convinced that Game Pass would be an attractive option for fans of the franchise, without risking reducing launch revenue for the game. I’m not sure this is actually a balance that can be successfully achieved, and I suspect some internal discussions about whether CoD should even be released day-and-date on Game Pass were quite heated, but there was Not really a choice here – without the ability to use this IP to push Game Pass, the entire value of the Activision Blizzard acquisition for Xbox would be called into question.

So we end up with a kind of halfway house of compromises. Black Ops 6 is heading to Game Pass on day one, a coup for that service; but only at the most expensive level, and only after a price increase for the service.

If grabbing exclusive subscription availability on launch day for one of the industry’s biggest franchises can’t move the needle for Game Pass, it will raise some questions about Game Pass’ content strategy

If many people subscribe to play the game for a month and then cancel, it will still mean a significant loss to the game’s revenue, which is undoubtedly a major fear for some people involved in the planning of this launch. Meanwhile, there’s a good chance that the lion’s share of the game’s sales will be on PlayStation 5 – revenue that will be very welcome for the bottom line of Microsoft’s games business, but from which Sony will also take a pretty tasty slice.

Another cost that’s difficult to calculate is that Black Ops 6 will likely launch without the marketing support and partnership revenue the franchise traditionally receives from Sony. Depending on how the Game Pass situation develops – how many new subscriptions it brings in and how long those new customers stay subscribed – it remains at least marginally possible that Sony could end up being the company that gets the most black ink on its financials as a result. launch, which is a bit of a bummer in what should be a moment of triumph for Xbox.

Part of the problem here is that the strategy around Activision Blizzard’s content on both Xbox and Game Pass has taken shape very, very slowly over the past year, and is quite strange in the forms it ultimately took.

If you browse Game Pass today, you’ll see absolutely no indication that Microsoft spent $75 billion buying a major publisher to bolster this service. By my count, only three Activision Blizzard games have made it to Game Pass; only one of which is a Call of Duty title. I was honestly surprised to find that the CoD back catalog isn’t at the top there – that feels like incredibly low-hanging fruit, making launching older games (even just their single-player campaigns) on Game Pass a pretty obvious way is to generate interest and excitement for the huge ‘event’ that is the Game Pass launch of Black Ops 6. “Prepare for Black Ops 6 by subscribing to Game Pass and playing the old campaigns” is a clear and compelling message, and it’s nothing short of weird that it didn’t happen.

If you browse Game Pass today, you can’t help but notice that Microsoft spent $75 billion buying a major publisher

Of course, all these doubts will disappear if Black Ops 6 can really create a huge wave of Game Pass sign-ups – and then keep those subscriptions going for at least a few months. But if not – if grabbing exclusive launch day subscription availability for one of the industry’s biggest franchises can’t move the needle enough for Game Pass to at least change the sales pattern for the game a little – then it will raise some questions about Game Pass’ content strategy, which have become increasingly difficult to ignore over the past two years.

Regardless, this launch is a milestone in the great experiment that is Microsoft’s integration of Activision Blizzard and its catalog. How Black Ops 6 performs next week – and on which platforms that performance is strongest – will play a major role in setting the tenor for Microsoft’s overall gaming strategy for years to come.