Transcription
What's going on, everybody? This is DK Dynamite for a big follow-up to yesterday's video. I know there's really not too much going on this weekend, but I ended up going down another rabbit hole regarding early access for BO7. Considering current gen platforms are now showing different dates and times as to when you could preload and then play Black Ops 7, definitely stay tuned.
Now, if you want to check out yesterday's video, I'm going to have that linked down below that focuses on how the New Zealand trick exactly works for all platforms, and we talked about the brand new report from PlayStation Size. That report alleges that you'll be able to play campaign and zombies early before multiplayer. It also contained what I believe are placeholder file sizes and some other information that we're not going to be recapping too much here in this video, but keep in mind a lot of the information from that video was pertaining to the PS4. It looks like current gen platforms are now showing different things. So that's what I want to focus on here tonight.
As a reminder, if you want to save 12% off any Control Freak order, including the brand new Black Ops 7 performance thumbsticks, then you can use code DYNAMITE over at checkout to pick up either the new BO7 thumbsticks, other Call of Duty ones, or even the brand new collector's box to celebrate the launch of Black Ops 7. Whereas I'd also expect them to end up doing, I'm assuming, maybe a zombified Percocola can edition in the next couple of months, as they've done for the past two years in a row.
But I first want to start by talking about Game Pass. As a reminder, you have to be subbed to either Game Pass Ultimate or Game Pass PC to play the new Call of Duty Day 1. Again, all old Call of Duty titles still aren't available through Game Pass. There's a couple of them on there now, but for the foreseeable future, I do believe they're going to have every brand new Call of Duty available day one, even though it was recently reported that Black Ops 6 actually lost them about $300 million in revenue, considering the game was available on Game Pass from the very beginning. My belief has always been that what they should have done with Call of Duty on Game Pass is just add all the older games and then add the new current title at least a few months after launch. That way they don't lose too much on sales. I get it though. It's pro-consumer to be able to pay like $10-$15 to play the new Call of Duty day one and then you can pay an extra fee to upgrade to the Vault Edition. I totally get that. But what I don't want to see is an example where maybe not even just Call of Duty, but other games out there suffer and have layoffs and shutdowns and budgets being pulled because direct profits aren't being made on the full price of a game. When Game Pass ends up dominating most of the player base for whatever that game may be. And with current market conditions and the possibility of Game Pass prices going up again, let's say in a year or two, it's going to come to a point where instead of just paying $35-$40 a month to play the new COD, you could just buy it right out. Then again, if you're somebody that plays a bunch of other games, then Game Pass could still be worth it to you.
But Ghost Defo put out the following report just earlier this afternoon, saying that developers he spoke to are claiming that the price increase for Game Pass is a positive for Call of Duty Studios. Financially, it's a win for them as individuals because it will lead to more revenue, which means they are more in control of their future and what they could achieve. There's also a lot more financial upside with bonuses and such if they are successful now. The news of a price increase also means they need to rely on making games that sell more units to achieve these bonuses. Now, I get it. You can also attribute the acquisition of Activision Blizzard to why a lot of studios have suffered, especially over the last few years under the Microsoft umbrella. I've always looked at Game Pass as a short-term W for like everybody involved, whereas the long-term consequences just don't seem to have been worth it, especially recently. And yes, I know how this sounds when you first read this, but the thing is, if they're incentivized to make a better game, then we as a community can also win. But I think there is a good argument to make that Black Ops 7 might be a case where pre-orders may have been low. Yet, we're still getting a lot of the things, if not almost everything we asked for, whether it's reduced SBMM, persistent lobbies, aim assist changes, perk overhauls, and, you know, classic mechanics in zombies, the list goes on. Would those things have happened if, let's say, Battlefield 6 didn't exist, or if, let's say, Black Ops 7 sales were through the roof? They probably wouldn't have even canceled carry forward if that was the case. But that aside, I do think Game Pass has been a net negative for not just Call of Duty, but a lot of other games out there, which has led to a bunch of consequences internally for a lot of the studios, for budgets, for future projections. So, let's see what happens in the long run. But either way, I would just hope that Call of Duty continues to do well financially while at the same time, simultaneously, the devs are still making great decisions that benefit everybody, even when they get their bonuses on top of it.
But with that aside, I want to give a shout out to everybody in the Bomb Shelter Discord server. I'm going to have that linked down below in case you guys haven't joined my Discord server yet. A lot of folks have been posting images in there of what they could see on their PlayStation Fives and their Xbox Series X or S's. Now, what they could see is that the Vault Edition countdown is different from the standard version of the game's countdown, which seems to imply the game should be available beginning on November the 13th at 11:00 Central, which is technically November 14th, which is midnight Eastern time. That makes sense. But when you look at the Vault Edition countdown, it is showing that BO7 is playable 8 days from now. And as of recording this, 8 days and 20 hours to be specific. That funny enough does line up with what we talked about yesterday, which is that November the 9th should be when preloads actually begin for just about every platform. Why is it though that the PS5 is showing people that they can also play the game on that day? That's something that really has us scratching our heads right now. But to be clear on my stance, I still believe that Black Ops 7 is releasing definitively on November the 14th. I don't believe we're getting any type of early access. I know there were some theories going around that maybe Vault Edition owners as a bit of an extra bonus could get access to either campaign or zombies, maybe both. I see that being completely unlikely, but then again, with such little marketing that's gone into the campaign, I really wonder what they're expecting for the launch window as far as campaign numbers go. Although it's a co-op campaign, although anticipation is pretty high right now for what the actual story and narrative is going to be, they haven't marketed or shown any gameplay of the co-op campaign, let alone Endgame, the big 32-player open-world Avalon experience that you unlock after beating campaign. So, if they were to do early access, but just not market the mode, I guess that makes up for it. But to not do early access and to not market it at all really has me thinking that they're either not confident in the campaign itself or something has gone on behind the scenes preventing them from sharing more of a sneak peek that everybody wants.
I also saw the PlayStation app confusing people even more since it suggested here that the download date is November the 6th, which is about a week before the game is meant to drop on the 14th. That's also strange because I believe we're pretty late into the year and we're very close to the launch of BO7 to where you would think a lot of these platforms have their dates and times set correctly. That's why people are more confused than anything. At least in my opinion, it's because the game is just a mere what 2 and a half weeks away. Yet, we're still seeing incorrect dates across the board. And then internally, from that leak that we saw yesterday on Twitter, PlayStation put this out. It also seems like even on the back end of the PS4, the dates are all over the place and just not making much sense. But I wasn't able to actually see this countdown timer on my PS5 pre-order of Black Ops 7. What I am confident about is that for the most part, it looks like there's a pretty consistent date being seen across several platforms, suggesting that the preload will definitively be November the 9th, not too far from now. I'm not sure why November the 6th is being thrown around on the PSN app. And then I think at that point you'll have what, a couple of days to get all your packs installed in case you have slower internet so that you can then jump right in through COD HQ beginning on November 13th through the New Zealand trick or November 14th if you're waiting in the United States or even Europe. Like I said before, I just don't think we're going to see any type of early access. But this is making for a really interesting conversation to the point where I do think extra transparency is needed as to why a lot of these dates are being thrown off. Not even from the internal leak that we talked about yesterday, but the fact that publicly right now, people's pre-orders are showing some incorrect timers. But I'm also trying to figure out when we've ever seen PlayStation Size reports ever be this inaccurate, let alone when a countdown timer on PS5 has ever been this inaccurate. Maybe there's an announcement coming out in the next couple of days that nobody could have expected. I know some of the insiders and leakers ended up putting out tweets a few weeks back suggesting that something big was being planned to celebrate the launch of BO7. Could that have been maybe some plan somewhere internally to drop one of the modes early since there's a lot being packaged day one? Is everybody out there really going to be aware of how expansive the co-op campaign and endgame are, let alone the fact that DeadOps Arcade 4 is like a game within a game? There's so much to explore that I would hope to see them kind of spread things out a little bit and give early access to one of those modes. But as I said before and even yesterday, I'm still very doubtful about this.
And the thing is, I get it. It'll be easy for folks to hop onto a creator's video and say, "Oh, they're clickbaiting early access. They're making things up." I mean, no. Looking at just how hot this topic is as of earlier today on Twitter, over on Reddit. This is a really interesting topic to try to break down because we've never really seen something like this before for a brand new Call of Duty. I know they've been radio silent about early access ever since MW3 got review-bombed by IGN. Because of that situation, I think we probably won't end up seeing new Call of Duty get early access again. That might have also been a part of, you know, some old model with PlayStation exclusivity and the fact that Microsoft didn't own Call of Duty at the time when early access was a thing. And with the implementation of Game Pass being an option to play the new Call of Duty Day One, maybe that also threw a wrench in the idea of early access to one particular game mode, maybe it breaks everything.
Now, the last thing I'll wrap with is that look, I get it. These games aren't made for content creators. They're not made for the people that already took off work. You know, they're not going to schedule the release of the game around everybody else's lives. I I totally understand that, but I do feel bad because even content creators included who do this full-time, a lot of folks probably rearrange their schedules and have things on a calendar, you know, set in stone to make sure they're prepared for the November 14th launch. So, if they go ahead and shadow drop the game without any mention or marketing, which like I said earlier, I doubt they're going to do, I don't think that's really something that they should do. I mean, if it's just one or two game modes, I guess that can get a pass. But I do feel bad for the folks out there that have school, that have work, that have already rearranged the month of November to account for the launch of the game. And then with the chance that it might not even drop on the 14th, that certainly is a little stressful for everybody included.
But either way, that is about it. This has been DK Dynamite. Leave your thoughts down below in the comments section. Just to remind you guys, PlayStation Size did say that the actual download in the database for PS5 hasn't been found yet. You only found the PS4 version. So, I'm curious to see what he finds whenever that specific preload ends up popping up in the back end because right now things aren't making sense. But the fact that current gen platforms just earlier today started showing this really odd countdown timer really has me thinking right there's a big mistake going on either behind the scenes or something big has yet to be announced. With that being said, really hope you've enjoyed and peace out, everybody.