This is probably why.

Would be some truth that delaying COD would have done horrific things to ABK's value but under Microsoft it would do fuck all to Microsoft's, Lol. 

I think there's only two issues really worth considering.

1. Moving COD to a 2 year release schedule would give competition a chance to grow, a reason why COD is so dominant is because it drowns out the competition, COD fans are conditioned to buy a COD every single year, they have no time for other FPS titles, it's literally nonstop COD. You move COD and competition to COD has a chance to grow.

Can mitigate this by doing expansions for the COD or focusing more on Warzone in the off-year but it'd still be ripe for Battlefield to take some of CODs lunch in the off-year. Likewise though, Xbox owns a lot of FPS franchises now, the same benefit applies to them, launching a new Halo for example in a year without COD would also benefit it.

2. Microsoft Gaming's yearly revenue would be on a bit of a yo-yo of up/down/up/down in the years without COD and unfortunately, investors are annoying fucks who demand constant growth, fortunately (maybe) for Microsoft Gaming, Microsoft investors don't seem to give a shit about it and may never give a shit about it so this may not even be a worry.

Those are Microsoft's problems to sort out though and Microsoft's money. So I say for the benefit of the teams and the IP, move Call of Duty to a 2 year release schedule. Yearly doesn't feel sustainable and I think expanding the teams may work in the short-term but long-term it's just kicking the can further down the road and will become someone else's problem.

The Man Who Erased his Cohosts | Official Xbox Podcast - YouTube

So it's Sony's fault the game is terrible, then.

Ultimately it worked out for the best for Xbox that Activision decided to turn what became CoD MW3 from a DLC into a main game. Because Sony had one final game on their marketing contract, and MW3 became that game, next year's CoD from Treyarch (or 2025's CoD if Phil does decide to do away with Yearly CoD releases like he talked about possibly doing) can be both day one Gamepass and have Xbox marketing and bundles. If what became MW3 had stayed a DLC for MW2, Sony would have had marketing on the next Treyarch CoD and Xbox couldn't have made it day one Gamepass.

Sucks for the fans who were looking forward to MW3 though. Hopefully Xbox decides to keep Sledgehammer on it for a good long time to fix it, if Phil does do away with yearly releases they really don't need Sledgehammer working on their next CoD game anytime soon, their next slot in the CoD studio rotation would be 6 years from now in that case, so it certainly couldn't hurt to leave Sledgehammer on MW3 for the next year or so, patching it and giving it DLC (including hopefully maps from the original MW3 from 2011) to turn it into an acceptable game that can properly hold people over until Treyarch's next CoD.

I don't get how Activision could have so many different teams and employees working on CoD and have to crunch their teams to get a game out a year. Do they each use different engines or something? The campaigns, from what I've read, aren't long. How does it take this long to simply make new guns and maps?

They neednto figure out a way to simplify the process so they can meet market demand without crunching their workers.

Just another reason why they need to diversify their offerings, I pray that the open world RPG that IW is working on isn't CoD related but it probably will be.

Valhalla Journal Day 15: 27% overall completion. 7th area 100% and the hardest achievement in the game obtained …. Release a fire fly in the camp. Found out that my brother is complete asshole and then he got taken away, glad to see the trash taking itself out.

Oh also seeing as MS had to take the L for Redfall they also got to take the L for MW3.

Nah, the CMA didn't care about Sony's concerns, Lol. It's the UKs fault the deals closure was delayed.

FWIW These reviews are for the Campaign only and I'm seeing quite a bit of praise for the Multiplayer but it's not worth putting the developers through this shitty development over and over again, they'll eventually leave Activision for somewhere else.