Support NeoGAF

[havoc00]

Not saying this would save sales of the series consoles but, people were in a frenzy last summer when the old cod games servers were fixed, people were thinking about buying a series s to play them or dusting off a 360 and re subbing to xbl or gamepass or whatever to play them. I honestly thought MS would make a bigger effort to make xbox the place to play cod, put anti cheat in the old games update textures dedicated servers etc... something. Even if it wasn't within months of the deal, by now I thought we would have had something even if it was just say bo1 or bo2 by now.

 

[howitis3]

Don't expect anything coming from a merger for at least a year. Be real

 

[havoc00]

Don't expect anything coming from a merger for at least a year. Be real

Diablo 4 is hitting GP end of this month, and even if we didnt get anything asap you would think they would hint at something in a tweet esp how bad the last few months were

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I’m waiting for the influx of cod oldie games. When Bethesda cleared, like 15 games went up one morning on GP.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Don't they already run into issues with COD 2025 as they don’t have a primary studio for it, since Sledgehammer refused to do it?

 

[TexMex]

You thought the three trillion dollar mega corporation is looking to do something nice for us?

You’re looking for fundamental updates and maintenance to old games that don’t make them money. It takes zero effort to just make Diablo 4 part of gamepass. There’s no Black Ops 1 store for you to spend money on MTX. They want you in the modern COD app, spending money. There’s nothing in it for them beyond a little good PR.

I’d love for it to happen too, but if it’s even in the cards at all, it’s wayyyyy down on the priority list.

 

[Yoda]

Game quality of Acti-Blizz will certainly get worse as a result of the merger, not better. MS has very weak in-house development itself and will lean heavily on brand recognition to sell games vs. trying innovate. The goal is basically what you alluded to, continue building their platform with more content.

Think how long it took to fix the MCC post launch.

 

[havoc00]

You thought the three trillion dollar mega corporation is looking to do something nice for us?

You’re looking for fundamental updates and maintenance to old games that don’t make them money. It takes zero effort to just make Diablo 4 part of gamepass. There’s no Black Ops 1 store for you to spend money on MTX. They want you in the modern COD app, spending money. There’s nothing in it for them beyond a little good PR.

I’d love for it to happen too, but if it’s even in the cards at all, it’s wayyyyy down on the priority list.

Just to make it nice for us no, but to get people who would sub to xbl or buy a sereis s to play those games again, give xbros some hope like this is the definitive home of cod because xbox really doesnt have an identity right now. I get what you are saying but this seems minimal in expense and resources to do this to get some excitement or some type of goodwill back to the brand

 

[Nitty_Grimes]

Diablo 4 is hitting GP end of this month, and even if we didnt get anything asap you would think they would hint at something in a tweet esp how bad the last few months were

Let people rent it and they’ll probably pony up for the DLC. Maybe the sales for Diablo have fell off a cliff now? Is CoD still selling in great numbers?

 

[havoc00]

Game quality of Acti-Blizz will certainly get worse as a result of the merger, not better. MS has very weak in-house development itself and will lean heavily on brand recognition to sell games vs. trying innovate. The goal is basically what you alluded to, continue building their platform with more content.

Think how long it took to fix the MCC post launch.

lol I bought MCC at midnight launch I know

 

[vaibhavpisal]

None of their efforts are towards making their consoles de facto place to play. You play where you want to play.

They do offer a great place to play. Its upto you to decide if you want to be in their ecosystem.

There are like, 10+ things they could have done to make their consoles take off that they decided not to do.

I can see now why regulators didn’t block Acti-Blizz deal.

 

[UltimaKilo]

They essentially just closed the acquisition. It will take them many more months (probably not even this year) to fully integrate Activision.

However, I wouldn’t really expect much of what you are asking for. That’s a really small demo that care for that and it would be difficult to monetize. You might get a bone here and there over the next few years, but for now, they’re probably working on moving all the games to GamePass little by little.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

There's no money in reactivating old CoD games for the small number of players who care and want to go play old CoD games

Which is why MS won't do it lol

MS didn't become the world's most valuable company by market cap by giving tiny groups of people things for free

 

[havoc00]

There's no money in reactivating old CoD games for the small number of players who care and want to go play old CoD games

Which is why MS won't do it lol

MS didn't become the world's most valuable company by market cap by giving tiny groups of people things for free

The old cods this summer were the best selling Xbox games just saying

 

[TexMex]

Just to make it nice for us no, but to get people who would sub to xbl or buy a sereis s to play those games again, give xbros some hope like this is the definitive home of cod because xbox really doesnt have an identity right now. I get what you are saying but this seems minimal in expense and resources to do this to get some excitement or some type of goodwill back to the brand

I think you are minimizing the work effort here a bit. You're talking about getting ancient games up and running in an acceptable manner on modern platforms, and it isn't just one. There are a LOT of Call of Duty games. Maybe for one game sure, but ten? Twelve?

And it's impossible to say for sure, but I really doubt a sizable portion of consumers are going to go buy an Xbox because they want play a Call of Duty from ten years ago. You're talking about a very narrow appeal here. Beyond that, and I don't know the exact terms, but part of the ABK deal was a commitment to having COD parity on other platforms. So even if they did do this dream scenario, it would (likely) be on Playstation as well. And PC.

 

[TexMex]

The old cods this summer were the best selling Xbox games just saying

While true (for a month), most Xbox owners aren't out there buying games, they're entirely GamePass dependent. That story got a ton of hype, there were no games coming out on Xbox, and the ones that were - were also on GamePass. They were literally the only games anyone would want that weren't also free. It doesn't take a lot of sales to be a "best seller" on Xbox.

 

[havoc00]

I think you are minimizing the work effort here a bit. You're talking about getting ancient games up and running in an acceptable manner on modern platforms, and it isn't just one. There are a LOT of Call of Duty games. Maybe for one game sure, but ten? Twelve?

And it's impossible to say for sure, but I really doubt a sizable portion of consumers are going to go buy an Xbox because they want play a Call of Duty from ten years ago. You're talking about a very narrow appeal here. Beyond that, and I don't know the exact terms, but part of the ABK deal was a commitment to having COD parity on other platforms. So even if they did do this dream scenario, it would (likely) be on Playstation as well. And PC.

A lot of consumers do want that those old games they jumped to the top of the sales chart this summer. They could charge for the dlc and everyone who buys the game is a guaranteed xbl sub

 

[havoc00]

While true (for a month), most Xbox owners aren't out there buying games, they're entirely GamePass dependent. That story got a ton of hype, there were no games coming out on Xbox, and the ones that were - were also on GamePass. They were literally the only games anyone would want that weren't also free. It doesn't take a lot of sales to be a "best seller" on Xbox.

But everyone who has an Xbox now will buy those games, which are guaranteed xbl sub customers. You will even get a few people jumping ship, and Xbox doesn’t have tons coming out in mass quantities month after month this would keep a lot occupied and on Xbox

 

[Killjoy-NL]

There's no money in reactivating old CoD games for the small number of players who care and want to go play old CoD games

Which is why MS won't do it lol

MS didn't become the world's most valuable company by market cap by giving tiny groups of people things for free

No, they just somehow manage to run their entire Xbox-division into the ground by putting everything on GP and on PC day 1.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

While true (for a month), most Xbox owners aren't out there buying games, they're entirely GamePass dependent

One of the most interesting contradictions I see on neogaf is that I regularly see people say that Xbox players won't buy games and will only use Gamepass, but also that Gamepass only reaches a small percentage of their console userbase.

I think there's quite a bit of people seeing what they want to see going on.

 

[GHG]

The old cods this summer were the best selling Xbox games just saying

That's because the bar wasn't high to begin with. It's a platform where game sales have cratered in recent years.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Game quality of Acti-Blizz will certainly get worse as a result of the merger, not better.

When you are scraping the bottom of the barrel the only way is up!

 

[TexMex]

One of the most interesting contradictions I see on neogaf is that I regularly see people say that Xbox players won't buy games and will only use Gamepass, but also that Gamepass only reaches a small percentage of their console userbase.

I think there's quite a bit of people seeing what they want to see going on.

I don’t “want” to see one thing or another. I own every console, doesn’t matter to me what goes where. Games sell fewer units on Xbox, for multiple reasons. Chief among them being gamepass, and just a lower user base. That isn’t anyone’s opinion, just how it is.

I’ve also never said that gamepass is a small percentage of console owners. In fact they just revealed they have more game pass subscribers out there than Series units sold, so I’m not sure what you’re talking about.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

One of the most interesting contradictions I see on neogaf is that I regularly see people say that Xbox players won't buy games and will only use Gamepass, but also that Gamepass only reaches a small percentage of their console userbase.

I think there's quite a bit of people seeing what they want to see going on.

Or some people see it exactly how it is, hence why people have been saying that MS would be moving to 3rd party publishing.

Which we see happening rn.

 

[Clintizzle]

Yeah 100%

I doubt we'll ever get a reason for why ActiBliz is being handled this way. Communication is not something Xbox is doing well at the moment.

 

[Hudo]

Don't expect anything coming from a merger for at least a year. Be real

This

 

[Starbuck2907]

they’ll make more money slowly remastering and reselling them, so I feel like that best you’ll see is some upscaling and auto hdr.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

They did, they have money.

 

[Rac3r]

Its pretty clear that they bought Activision to help push their mobile storefront. Using resources/engineers to work on old 360 games is probably very low on their priority list.

 

[ManaByte]

I honestly thought MS would make a bigger effort to make xbox the place to play cod

They legally can't do that until November when the current Sony COD marketing agreement ends. Once Black Ops is out they can.

 

[hemo memo]

Don't expect anything coming from a merger for at least a year. Be real

I would say 4 years.

 

[scarlet0pimp]

They will probably make a big fanfare of it at some point when they can get some marketing together for it, if they can spare some cash for marketing.
I dont know whats going on with MS marketing at the moment though, its pretty much non existent in the uk though PS 5 ads are pretty common,

 

[Kilau]

Not saying this would save sales of the series consoles but, people were in a frenzy last summer when the old cod games servers were fixed, people were thinking about buying a series s to play them or dusting off a 360 and re subbing to xbl or gamepass or whatever to play them. I honestly thought MS would make a bigger effort to make xbox the place to play cod, put anti cheat in the old games update textures dedicated servers etc... something. Even if it wasn't within months of the deal, by now I thought we would have had something even if it was just say bo1 or bo2 by now.

 

[King Dazzar]

Not saying this would save sales of the series consoles but, people were in a frenzy last summer when the old cod games servers were fixed, people were thinking about buying a series s to play them or dusting off a 360 and re subbing to xbl or gamepass or whatever to play them. I honestly thought MS would make a bigger effort to make xbox the place to play cod, put anti cheat in the old games update textures dedicated servers etc... something. Even if it wasn't within months of the deal, by now I thought we would have had something even if it was just say bo1 or bo2 by now.

If Xbox were a brilliantly managed and an efficient team who were solely focused on the console itself as the priority. You'd expect your hopes would be realised. But unfortunately that just isn't the reality.

Once upon a time I would have thought about Xbox bringing all of the CoD campaigns as an XSX enhanced package. And redoing multiple IP's. These days? I don't expect anything of the sort. Its just not what or who they are.

 

[DaGwaphics]

Some of the ABK games will make it over to GP eventually. They will probably just trickle these in to maximize effect. Diablo IV is likely just the first of many.

Other than that, I don't see what they could have done at this point to leverage ABK to their own benefit. Sony was still marketing the last CoD release.

 

[Operations66]

I still play Modern Warfare 2019, and once MWII came out, Activision removed game modes and maps from MW2019 in order to force people to move to the next game, which was considerably worse. They never added the game modes and maps back. They hate us and view us only as farm animals.

I was hoping for some love from MS once they took over, but no dice so far.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

MS mismanaging studios is what they're great at . . .

But it is sad, that so far it's just resulting in getting Diablo 4 late, when most quit playing it and people hate the changes they made.

 

[diffusionx]

You got played OP. Phil comes out and talks that shit to get gamers on board, but he's lying. He did the same shit with Bethesda. They're not going to spend money on texture packs for 10+ year old games lmao. They're not reviving Spyro. They paid $70 billion for the Call of Duty live service. They're re-engineering the company to fit what they want to do with that, which is likely scaling back the annual releases (which required Activision dedicating 100% of its resources to, and the games were still coming out shitty) and focusing more on the live side of it.

 

[SHA]

While true (for a month), most Xbox owners aren't out there buying games, they're entirely GamePass dependent. That story got a ton of hype, there were no games coming out on Xbox, and the ones that were - were also on GamePass. They were literally the only games anyone would want that weren't also free. It doesn't take a lot of sales to be a "best seller" on Xbox.

It's just the marketing, holding on the service isn't sustainable, I could totally understand who make it his own secondary console, but those who eventually spend more time with the console realize it's way better to spend on buying, just do it yourself or ask anyone after beating 50 games, does it get any better to rely on services or not?

 

[M1chl]

Did they had time for it? How long they actually have Activision... well probably long enough to fire some people.

 

[intbal]

Blame the regulators for stalling the deal for a whole year.

 

[Jaybe]

Phil, Sarah, and Booty royally dropped the ball on this and I don’t think this is talked about enough, and if I still had by XSX and Game Pass sub I’d be pretty letdown as a consumer. When Zenimax/Behesda closed, essentially the full catalog of their games came to Game Pass within a week. It’s been almost 5 months since Activsion Blizzard closed and not a single game has been added to Game Pass. For the Xbox console version of Game Pass they likely could have put everything that runs on the Series consoles into Game Pass within 2 weeks (like Bethesda) aside from potentially CoD due to Sony marketing contracts. But for whatever reason, be it wanting to capitalize on holiday game sales or they were questioning what to do with Game Pass or they wanted simultaneous launch with PC and Cloud, they have delayed. They treat the people most invested in their hardware and ecosystem as second class citizens. Imagine if in November 2023, 20+ Activision Blizzard games were added to Game Pass Console and all those sales for Black Friday. Would have been a better holiday for Xbox and rewarded their loyal customer base.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

this is because people were delusional, living in a world of fantasy and lies.

you just needed to look at Xbox's track record to know they will fucked up somehow.

spoiler:
The worst is yet to come.

 

[tmlDan]

since the purchase it already feels like COD sales decreased/ it's less popular, and COD esports has lost popularity.

This was such a bad decision, i expect it to get worse - not better.

 

[Three]

They legally can't do that until November when the current Sony COD marketing agreement ends. Once Black Ops is out they can.

Nonsense, any deal doesn't prevent them from releasing the older CoDs the OP is asking for.

 

[StereoVsn]

There's no money in reactivating old CoD games for the small number of players who care and want to go play old CoD games

Which is why MS won't do it lol

MS didn't become the world's most valuable company by market cap by giving tiny groups of people things for free

 

[Operations66]

Maybe there's "no money" in improving old CoD games, but MS could generate a lot of goodwill with fans if they did that. Goodwill is worth a lot in the long run.

 

[mayham2199]

Maybe there's "no money" in improving old CoD games, but MS could generate a lot of goodwill with fans if they did that. Goodwill is worth a lot in the long run.

I feel like MS has been doing a lot of "Goodwill" stuff lately and it hasn't done anything for them honestly. They just need to focus on making money so more people don't have to lose their job.

 

[DJ12]

You thought or hoped.

I thought MS would not change anything as they didn't want to devalue the product, so you should be grateful to be getting diablo 4, if the next one is gamepass fodder, may as well not bother.

 

[diffusionx]

since the purchase it already feels like COD sales decreased/ it's less popular, and COD esports has lost popularity.

This was such a bad decision, i expect it to get worse - not better.

The last three COD games have been dogshit. Yet still popular.

There is plenty of time to fix this problem, but the games have to get better. Can Microsoft do that, I dunno.