Sony, Microsoft publishing Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 in Japan

By Danny Cowan August 18, 2015

sony publishing black ops 3 in japan iii 640x0 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Sony’s Japanese branch confirmed that it will publish Treyarch’s military-themed first-person shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 for the PlayStation 4 and PS3 in Japan, taking over regional publishing duties from Activision.

Rival console manufacturer Microsoft followed up with its own announcement that it will publish the Japanese Xbox One and Xbox 360 editions of Black Ops 3.

Recommended Videos

Publisher Square Enix was previously in charge of producing localized Call of Duty games in Japan. The company started publishing Activision’s series in Japan with 2007’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and the partnership continued up until the release of last year’s Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

This week’s announcements arrive shortly after Sony revealed that it had secured timed exclusivity for Call of Duty series DLC, ending Microsoft’s yearslong agreement that saw DLC released for Xbox consoles first. All DLC released for Black Ops 3 will now hit the PlayStation 4 and PS3 first, with equivalent Xbox 360 and Xbox One releases arriving a month later.

Sony previously partnered with Activision for the Japanese release of Bungie’s first-person shooter Destiny. Published by Sony, the Japanese versions of Destiny are exclusive to PlayStation platforms in the region.

Square Enix initially split its Japan-region Call of Duty releases between subtitled editions and versions featuring Japanese-dubbed dialogue. The company later opted to release its games with subtitling exclusively. Sony revealed that the upcoming PlayStation 4 and PS3 editions of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 will feature both subtitled and dubbed dialogue on the same disc.

Continuing the popular Black Ops subseries, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 features a single-player campaign and numerous multiplayer modes, along with a retooled zombie mode with voice acting from Jeff Goldblum, Heather Graham, and Ron Perlman.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 will premiere worldwide on Nov. 6. A preorder exclusive multiplayer beta will launch on August 19, and will continue through August 23.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Danny’s passion for video games was ignited upon his first encounter with Nintendo’s Duck Hunt, and years later, he still…

Gaming

The best Call of Duty games, ranked

Soldier holding weapon in Modern Warfare II.

Few video game series are as influential and popular as Call of Duty. The annualized franchise throws players into fast-paced battles across various historical time periods -- along with fictional eras as well. Call of Duty has taken us to World War II, the Cold War, a modern setting, and even to the future.

Although it's one of the most successful video game franchises out there, Call of Duty's quality varies significantly from game to game, with some fantastic entries in the series, but many mediocre ones as well. But which Call of Duty games are worth your time and which ones should you skip? To answer that question, we've ranked all the mainline entries in the series, with details about why you should or shouldn't play a particular game.

Gaming

Is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Game Pass?

A soldier crouching with his eyes blacked out.

When Microsoft announced that it was acquiring Activision, the big question on everyone's mind was what would happen with Call of Duty. Well, it took months of legal battles, but the deal finally went through and the first CoD game to release officially under Microsoft is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Xbox has held firm to its commitment to put all of its first-party titles onto Game Pass on day one for all its subscribers, but is it honoring that deal for the biggest game of the year? We know it isn't an Xbox exclusive and is still cross-platform, after all. If you have an Xbox and a subscription to Game Pass, you might not need to spend any money on Black Ops 6, but only if you meet one specific requirement.
Is Black Ops 6 on Game Pass?

The short answer is yes, Black Ops 6 is on Game Pass, but not at every tier. Prior to Black Ops 6 launching, Xbox restructured its Game Pass tiers a bit with new pricing and benefits. What you need to know is that you now need to either be a PC Game Pass or Game Pass Ultimate subscriber to get access to any first-party day-one titles.

Gaming

You might want to wait a bit to play Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Steam

A player runs in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 multiplayer.

It's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launch day, which means potentially millions of players are hopping into the new single-player campaign, the updated multiplayer mode, and Zombies. While posts online about the performance of the game seem to be minimal, there have been reported issues on PC, specifically via Steam.

It's been a common story lately about players being mad at third-party launchers on Steam, and that remains the case for Black Ops 6. Call of Duty's is called Call of Duty HQ (COD HQ), and it's a hub for players to manage their game installs, whether they want to only download certain game modes or launch a specific game. It seems as if players can only switch between modes through the launcher and have to go through multiple menus to boot the game up. In the worst cases, they can't launch the game at all.