12 July 2023 , 16:00
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The Activision Blizzard president has shed some light on the future of Diablo 4 appearing on Xbox Game Pass, and it’s not good news for subscribers.
Ever since the prospect of the Microsoft Activision deal as a concept was floated, certain players had hoped that Diablo 4 – an Activision Blizzard game – would find its way onto Xbox Game Pass. After all, Activision Blizzard becoming a first-party studio would make Diablo’s latest entry a first-party game, which Xbox regularly makes a point of releasing on its premiere game streaming service on launch day. Now, however, new comments from the current Blizzard president have cast further doubt.
Responding to a fan in a tweet (which has since been deleted) Activision Blizzard president Mike Ybarra said in his reply tweet that “this is not happening,” after it was reported that PicPay, a payment app service in Brazil, was advertising the game as being available on Xbox Game Pass. It appears to be some sort of mistake on PicPay’s part, but still serves to reiterate the studio’s position that Diablo 4 will not be arriving on Xbox Game Pass any time soon.
It’s a more than understandable stance given that Diablo 4 continues to do well just over a month from when it launched. In a Business Wire post, Diablo senior PR manager, Maxim Samoylenko, revealed that the game had generated $666 million in sales revenue during the first five days of being on the market, achieving a record-breaking sell-through rate for Activision Blizzard across PlayStation, Xbox and PC.
Knowing this removes a lot of the mystery of why Activision Blizzard isn’t keen on bringing Diablo 4 to Xbox Game Pass anytime soon – it continues to sell gangbusters on its own as a full-price title. And with Diablo 4 Season 1 set to launch next week, bringing with it new endgame content and a 100-tier battle pass, it’s likely that the game is about to generate more cash through microtransactions from die-hard players who choose to opt in.
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Shall not pass
Ybarra’s reply came mere hours before it was revealed that Microsoft had won its case against the FTC, in effect making it possible for the Xbox-maker to officially acquire Activision Blizzard before the July 18, 2023, deadline. This is when Diablo 4 – in theory – reverts to being a first-party game, which may or may not result in it coming to Xbox Game Pass eventually.
It isn’t a guarantee, however, despite head of Xbox Phil Spencer stating upon the acquisition’s announcement that the platform “ will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, both new titles and games from Activision Blizzard’s incredible catalog.” The phrase “as we can” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Personally, speaking as a fan who really enjoys playing Diablo 4 despite its online woes, I can’t see Diablo 4 arriving on Xbox Game Pass in the near future; not while it continues to soar in popularity ands Activision Blizzard is able to extract full-price sales. Similar to how GTA 5 regularly flirts with the service, there’s a chance in the future that Diablo 4 will come and go as part of the lineup, but we’re extremely far away from this instance ever happening.