A fresh Call of Duty game always seems to top the charts each year.
When Black Ops 6 launched on Game Pass right from the start, people wondered if this might hurt its popularity and sales on Xbox Series X|S and other systems. It’s a bit too early to say for sure, but an expert thinks it didn’t suffer at all. Mat Piscatella, an analyst at Circana, commented on Bluesky that the excitement around Black Ops 6 is just “bonkers.” He mentioned, “We’ve yet to see anything like it in our engagement tracking data… There’s been an ongoing debate about Game Pass and its impact on sales and it’s never been settled because… it depends. Sometimes it helps sales (especially through virality), sometimes it hurts. After two weeks, my take on this one is that it may not have helped, but it also sure didn’t hurt.”
Activision shared that Black Ops 6 broke records for the franchise with its opening weekend, boasting the most players, hours played, and matches ever. Miles Leslie from Treyarch thinks Game Pass brought back many fans who hadn’t played in a while. He said, “We’ve gotten to the point now where Black Ops and Call of Duty have been around so long–I’ve been working on it for 16 years. And really the challenge for us is how do you bring along the fans that love Call of Duty, but how do you create an environment where you can welcome new fans in?”
We believe games on Game Pass can bring people together, making it easier for them to try and enjoy new games.
To finalize its deal to buy Activision Blizzard, Microsoft promised to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for at least ten more years. Activision hasn’t shared exact sales numbers for Black Ops 6 yet, but using Game Pass seems to have hit their targets for now.
