On Monday, Activision Blizzard posted an interesting message on its X (formerly Twitter) account. It stated that, once Microsoft finally closes the deal to acquire the publisher, it would begin to work with Microsoft to "begin adding games into Game Pass sometime in the course of next year."
While that was a pretty vague timeline, it seemed fairly clear that Activision Blizzard said its games wouldn"t begin appearing on Microsoft"s Xbox Game Pass service until some time in 2024. However, a new report claims that may not be true after all.
Windows Central, citing unnamed sources, says that "we expect to see a ton of new games hit Xbox Game Pass the very minute the deal is finalized." As we have reported before, Microsoft is waiting for a decision by the UK Competition and Markets Authority to give its final approval of the deal. That is expected to happen sometime this week, and rumors claim Microsoft could close the deal to buy Activision Blizzard on Friday, October 13.
If this report is accurate, the next question is, "What Activision Blizzard games would be added to Xbox Game Pass?" The publisher has already ruled out adding Blizzard"s Diablo IV and Activision"s upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III to the service, at least for now. However, as the article points out, there are a lot of older games from the publisher that could easily find their way to Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass.
On Activision"s side, we could see older Crash Bandicoot and Spyro games join the service, along with titles like the Prototype series, Singularity, Blur, and more. It"s also possible we could see older games in the Call of Duty series added to Xbox Game Pass. On Blizzard"s side, PC Game Pass could add the older Starcraft and Warcraft RTS games.
Hopefully, the CMA will make its final decision sooner rather than later, and if its a thumbs up for the deal, Xbox Game Pass could suddenly become an even bigger value than it already is.