When Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 hit the scene as a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass, it raised a few eyebrows and stirred up a lively debate about its potential impact on sales. Gamers and industry insiders alike pondered if being available on Game Pass would tilt the sales scales. However, it turns out that while Xbox sales took a slight dip, those numbers were offset by robust performances on PC and PS5.
Mat Piscatella, an analyst with Circana, shared some insights in a recent report. According to the latest figures, the release of Black Ops 6 on Xbox Game Pass didn’t seem to significantly undercut sales in the U.S. While Xbox sales saw some changes due to the Game Pass availability, PlayStation platforms—both PS4 and PS5—came through strongly, grabbing a larger share of sales.
Highlighting his findings on social media, Piscatella noted, “Adding Black Ops 6 to Game Pass did a few things in the U.S. It led to an increase in subscription spending, pushed more full game sales over to PlayStation, didn’t eat into sales drastically, and didn’t give Xbox hardware the boost one might expect.” This suggests that while Game Pass helped increase subscription numbers, it wasn’t the game-changer for Xbox Series hardware sales Microsoft might have hoped for.
It’s not entirely shocking that Black Ops 6 didn’t drive a spike in Xbox console sales, especially considering Microsoft’s recent marketing approach, which seems to embrace the idea that anything and everything can be an Xbox.
This sales trend reinforces what we’ve been hearing from Xbox’s headquarters: Black Ops 6 was a record-breaking launch for the franchise, proving once again that the Call of Duty series is an unstoppable force, dominating across all platforms.
So, does this data take you by surprise? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to drop a comment below and join the conversation.
