Activision Blizzard Xbox Game Pass Releases Not Planned This Year, Says Phil Spencer

CEO Phil Spencer was recently part of the official Xbox Podcast, where he discussed Microsoft’s successful $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. He revealed that games from that studio’s catalog are not planned to arrive in 2023. Instead, Game Pass additions are expected to arrive in 2024.

This development differs significantly from Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda two years ago, which quickly provided a fair number of titles soon after the process was finalized. However, the difference with Activision Blizzard is how lengthy and arduous the acquisition process took for approval. Plus, there was general uncertainty regarding whether the approval would even go ahead in the first place.

So, even though much of the groundwork has been established, more time is required for this new status quo to be enacted. Spencer noted that there’s no “secret celebration” planned for the coming weeks either, and he’s aware of the disappointment that will result from this.

Spencer directly said the following:

…:This acquisition is definitely long-term. So the fact that we’re not hitting day one with a bunch of games dropping in to Game Pass is a little bit of a downer, but I’m very excited about the future. And I just want to be straight with people that that’s where we are.”

You can view the timestamped segment of the broadcast where Phil Spencer discussed this point below: