In June this year, Microsoft held its first major game conference – Xbox Games Showcase under the guidance of Asha Sharma. It wasn’t much different from the Phil Spencer Show in recent years, where games that would be releasing on Xbox in the near future were talked about. Additionally, all projects from in-house studios were immediately announced for release on Game Pass, with the exception of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 (it was announced back in April that new installments of the series would be excluded from the subscription).
However, at BlizzCon the strategy changed to Players noticed. Not only did Blizzard announce the game in “movie format,” which is still far away from release, it also made no mention of plans to release new games on Game Pass.
As part of BlizzCon, they announced a StarCraft shooter that will be released in 2030, as well as a Diablo V that will be released in the spring of 2029. The gameplay trailer makes no mention that they will be part of a Game Pass subscription, nor does it list platforms. By comparison, Playground Games’ Fable, which launched six years ago, was immediately announced for release on Game Pass, as was State of Decay 3 and many other early-release games.
Note that StarCraft and Diablo V are the first major Xbox announcements since Asha Sharma’s arrival. She has stated several times before that the current Game Pass model needs to change. However, no major changes to subscriptions have been announced during the 100th day of the Xbox reboot.
