There are few words that adequately explain Call of Duty's profound impact on the gaming industry over the last 15 years. After the Microsoft buyout of Activision Blizzard, Call of Duty may continue to make waves in the industry as some believe the series' mainline titles will be Xbox exclusives.The term mainline is used here in order to separate the annual Call of Duty releases from its free-to-play service, Call of Duty: Warzone. Going back to 2005's Call of Duty 2, Activision has released a new title every year, with Warzone launching in Season 2 of 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. As a result, the latest mainline release, Call of Duty: Vanguard, has received heavy criticism for feeling undercooked in a variety of areas, from the campaign to the multiplayer, and especially the Zombies. Despite these issues, Call of Duty: Vanguard was still the highest selling game of 2021, a testament to the series' enduring popularity.Now that Microsoft owns Activision Blizzard, who has the rights to Call of Duty, the current belief by many is that the series' mainline games will Xbox exclusive going forward. One such believer is Jeff Grubb, an industry insider and reporter for VentureBeat, who wrote on Twitter, "Warzone will remain multiplatform, but I think main Call of Duty games go exclusive." Their claim is that because Microsoft has opted to put all of Bethesda's forthcoming titles exclusively on Xbox and Game Pass, that Microsoft will likely do the same with Activision's IPs, having "already ran the numbers on every scenario." Most recently, Call of Duty has been affiliated with PlayStation, those users receiving exclusive content in Vanguard.
Grubb explains in follow-up tweets how Activision and Call of Duty could rationalize such a move. "[Call of Duty] treats the money it loses from PlayStation sales as an investment/marketing cost to promote Game Pass," Grubb continues, touching upon the necessity to go all-in on Game Pass.
Ultimately, Grubb admits, "I don't know. This is weird," as conjecturing about a franchise as big as Call of Duty with its live-service elements—as opposed to a single-player, non-service title like Crash Bandicoot or Spyro—changes how this issue must be considered.
In their assessment, Grubb provides a pretty reasonable prediction as to how this situation with Call of Duty may play out. Keeping the free-to-play Warzone experience open on other consoles, but making the mainline Call of Duty titles exclusive to Xbox and Game Pass will likely make many gamers rethink what console or hardware they want to play on. With former developers thinking Call of Duty needs revitalization, becoming an Xbox exclusive and spreading out its releases could be the best thing to happen for Call of Duty.