Where did you read that day one Gamepass was against the rules? Assuming the EU deal is what they are shooting for, they want day one Gamepass but will also allow games to go to any other cloud streaming service that wants to sign an agreement with them. And I don't see why anything other than COD would remain multi-plat (or the Blizzard stuff on PC competitor services.) The jury is out on whether Elder Scrolls will be but Bethesda's other games certainly aren't going to be, going forward so I don't see why stuff like Crash wouldn't be too.
Crash 4 sold horribly and coincidentally did not have Sony marketing rights. Crash 1-3 remakes sold the majority of their copies on PlayStation; common sense because the fanbase and nostalgia for the IP is on that platform.
An exclusive Crash on Xbox might as well be a dead game; a new Banjo-Kazooie exclusive to the platform has a better chance of being successful. Honestly if they are considering anything with those IP, they should do a BK/Crash/Spyro mega-platformer.
As for anything but COD going exclusive...the honest truth is that the Xbox brand does not have the appeal to make exclusivity of
ALL those IP worth it financially. This is a $69 billion deal; making everything but COD exclusive would take decades for Xbox division to recoup those costs in net profits.
This ABK deal is not even for Xbox, primarily; it has always been mainly for Game Pass and mobile. Day 1 of these games on Game Pass will drive down the B2P sales revenue and have no net gain of IAPs for the games in the service, and as long as Game Pass's ARPU remains as low as it is, they would need a gargantuan amount of additional subs to make that route truly profitable, and I kind of doubt they will happen. The year MS closed the Zenimax acquisition sub counts went up by 7 million, then stagnated. Outside of COD I don't think ABK has any IP that are inherently more valuable than the Zenimax's, and I don't think ABK would bring more than 14 million subs.
With the current pricing options MS provides for Game Pass and the assumed $2 billion they generated off the service in 2022, their ARPU is around $82. Let's assume they're "close" to 30 million subscribers right now; 14 million more brings it to 44 million at an ARPU of $82 = $3.6 billion annual Game Pass revenue. That sounds good on the surface but also consider the reduction in B2P sales revenue ABK games will take as a consequence of Day 1 in the service. Consider that those games being Day 1 in the service could lead "power buyers" (aka whales) who would normally be incentivized to purchase those and other games throughout the year, to instead turn to the service for all their game access.
That impacts 3P software sales on the platform; in fact I think there is a rather obvious link here to explain some of the 3P sales collapse on Xbox; the other factor being Day 1 of all games on PC has driven other "whales" in the console ecosystem to migrate to PC and do all their 3P software purchases there (via Steam, e.g) instead, reducing sales. Additionally, mainstream & casuals who'd maybe normally wait for sales to buy games on the cheap, just being content with the service's offerings and thus further impacting B2P sales revenue on Xbox systems.
edit: And to counterpoint your argument further, if this deal did exclusivize CoD, how does that benefit Xbox gamers anyway, since they already get CoD. It ends the Sony early DLC deal (does that still even go on? I noped out of CoD after MW2 over a decade ago) but small pickings there.
Do you remember the CMA's insights that partial foreclosure of COD content on PlayStation platforms would be considered okay? So, while you feel making COD exclusive would be beneficial to stopping Sony's timed DLC deals, you're ignoring that Microsoft would simply do those same practices (and perhaps more) themselves.
And this is just when considering partial foreclosure; you're talking about full foreclosure of the IP on PlayStation, something that I feel if the CMA felt MS were wanting to do from the jump, would have made their decision that much easier to block, considering the platform strength of Xbox in the UK market (generally speaking) and the size of COD as an IP. But they decided to drop console SLC concerns to focus on cloud instead (still produced a similar result to block, and one with more substance to argue in favor of most likely).
