Microsoft Adds Popular Games to Game Pass, Including Call of Duty

Microsoft has brought several major video game titles to Xbox Game Pass, its subscription service that works like Netflix for games. The new additions include Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and two classic strategy games from Blizzard Entertainment called StarCraft and StarCraft II. These games are now available to anyone who pays a monthly subscription instead of buying them separately.

Game Pass is a membership service where you pay around $17 per month and get access to hundreds of games. It works on both Xbox consoles and Windows PCs. Microsoft made these new games available after completing its purchase of Activision Blizzard, the company that makes Call of Duty and owns Blizzard Entertainment.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is the first major title from Activision Blizzard to join Game Pass since Microsoft finished buying the company in October 2023. The game normally costs $70 to buy outright. By adding it to Game Pass right away, Microsoft removes that cost barrier for subscribers — meaning the company is banking on attracting new members and keeping existing ones by offering popular games without extra charges.

StarCraft's Journey to Game Pass

The StarCraft games are historically important. They are strategy games that were originally released for personal computers, starting in 1998. In South Korea, these games became so popular that professional players competed on television with sponsorships, similar to how people watch traditional sports. StarCraft has never been available on console subscription services before, so its arrival on Game Pass is a significant change.

Getting these old PC games to run on modern Xbox hardware required technical work. The original StarCraft was designed for Windows 95 computers from decades ago, which used completely different technology than today's Xbox consoles. Microsoft's engineers had to build translation software to make these older games function on current hardware.

How Game Pass Fits Into Microsoft's Plan

Game Pass is central to how Microsoft wants gaming to work in the future. The company is shifting away from selling individual games that people buy once, and toward recurring subscriptions where people pay monthly. This is similar to how Netflix changed the movie and TV industry — instead of renting or buying individual films, you pay a flat monthly fee for access to a whole library.

Microsoft offers a tiered subscription model for Game Pass. The basic option is less expensive, but the Ultimate tier at $16.99 per month includes games on both consoles and PC, as well as the ability to play games on mobile devices through cloud streaming. Cloud streaming works by running the game on Microsoft's powerful computers in data centers and sending the video to your phone or tablet, so you don't need expensive hardware at home.

The company does not reveal how many people subscribe to Game Pass anymore, but it had over 25 million subscribers in early 2023. Game Pass is one way Microsoft keeps people in its gaming ecosystem and generates steady income instead of depending on people buying new games occasionally.

Competition and What This Means

The subscription gaming market has competitors. Sony, which makes PlayStation, created its own service called PlayStation Plus to compete with Game Pass. Other gaming companies like Electronic Arts and Ubisoft have their own subscription services too. Streaming services like GeForce Now let people access games through any device without owning specific hardware.

Microsoft's strategy stands out because it releases major new games on Game Pass the same day they launch in stores, instead of waiting months or years. This costs Microsoft a lot of money upfront, but it draws people into the service and keeps them subscribed.

The broader shift happening here mirrors patterns we have seen before. When Netflix moved from renting DVDs to creating original shows and movies, it changed the entertainment industry. Microsoft appears to be following a similar path in gaming — building up a large subscriber base with popular games, while also working on exclusive games it will make itself.

Microsoft's gaming division makes over $15 billion every year. The company sees subscriptions as increasingly important compared to selling individual games or hardware. Game Pass is the main tool Microsoft is using to move gaming from one-time purchases to ongoing monthly payments. This aligns with Microsoft's broader business focus on cloud services and recurring revenue, where customers pay continuously rather than once.

For someone watching how subscription services work across different industries, gaming provides a useful example of how companies attract and keep customers, manage cancellations, and build network effects — patterns that apply to many software services beyond gaming.