Now you need to work with someone in the UK. Can you talk to him right now? Who knows? You need to ask Internet about the time delay between where you live and where he lives.
In other words this has not changed either. So not a downside?
It is a downside, because with a time zone you know immediately if a time is suitable or not. For instance, if you see that in the uk is 4am, you know immediately that it isn’t suitable. If there isn’t a “standard”, you need to check every time if that time is suitable or not, and it isn’t as straightforward.
Most consumers just don’t care or don’t know at all who Bobby Kotick is. Call of Duty is so popular, but the people that follow the market or the game industry well enough to know the people behind games aren’t that many.
I don’t mean this in a negative way at all, but I wonder if the people that dislike that have watched Clone Wars/Rebels. Because I loved that season 3 included more Mandalorians and their history, I think it was hinted since the beginning with the Children of the Watch and the Way of the Mandalore that were never introduced before, that we would have got some more insight of what happened to the other Mandalorians post Rebels. I can understand in a way why it can be disliked, if you have never watched the previous series and you don’t care at all about all of that, but I personally really like it.
Integrated voice chat, or even better, Discord support like PS and Xbox are doing.