Call of Duty Could Reportedly Ditch the Annual Release Schedule
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Call of Duty could be moving away from its annual release schedule in the future, according to a report from Bloomberg.
Following the $68 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, Bloomberg reports that high-level employees at Activision are discussing moving away from Call of Duty's annual release schedule, with Call of Duty developers believe that releasing new games in the franchise less often will benefit players, the franchise, and allow more opportunity for Activision's developers to work on other titles.
“Activision has long followed a traditional business model, chasing big blockbusters such as Call of Duty and Candy Crush while ditching franchises with less potential, such as StarCraft,” Bloomberg reports. “Xbox takes a different approach due to its Game Pass, a Netflix-like subscription plan that allows users to pay a monthly fee for access to a large variety of games. Thanks to Game Pass, not every game needs to be a massive hit to be considered a success. Xbox’s strategy has been to fund and acquire a variety of eclectic titles that may help draw new subscribers.”
The hope is that, under Microsoft, developers will be given more creative freedom, possibly leading to less developers leaving Activision to pursue other game ideas.
Activision has plenty of dormant IP that Microsoft could look into reviving - we actually put together our own list of eight that we'd like to see make a return - and with Call of Duty releasing new games less frequently, we might hopefully see talented development studios like Vicarious Visions, Toys For Bob, and Raven Software able to work on more interesting and varied projects once again.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer has also said that Xbox wants to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation platforms, following the merger.