Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was certainly the last biggest release of the end of the year when we see the schedule for November and December. If Activision has not yet communicated on the success of its game, serious indications suggest that this is a very successful launch.
Black Ops 6 drives up internet traffic for release
It's often the case that Activision releases a laudatory press release a few days after the release of the latest Call of Duty game. It's only Monday morning, but we can already gauge the success of Block Ops 6.
Firstly, it was the British service provider EE (British Telecom) which declared this weekend that the release this week of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on PC and consoles has “generated the highest traffic ever recorded for a game launch” on its network, the largest peak having occurred on Monday 21, which corresponds to the preloading period.
As reported by telecoms specialist ISPreview, EE/British Telecom saw a 144% increase in Xbox Live traffic on its home broadband network compared to the previous week. This is quite easily explained by the availability for the very first time of a Call of Duty game in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate from launch, as well as the significant weight of the game and the data to download.
The British service provider has also launched a range of bundled offers with an Xbox or PS5 console + the game Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, giving the right to some in-game cosmetic items.
The impact of Black Ops 6 on Steam is clearly visible
The other sign of a successful launch for Black Ops 6 is on Steam, Valve's famous platform. While the game is sold for €79.99 in standard version, it is already recording very good scores and has had a better launch than Modern Warfare III last year.
Modern Warfare 3 had a peak of 190,000 concurrent players during its release weekend in 2023, compared to around 260,000 for Modern Warfare 2 in 2022. And with the release of Balck Ops 6, that peak rose to 306,000 this weekend, a sign that the game is already doing better than the two previous titles.
There is a subtlety though, which is that Steamcharts reports stats from the Call of Duty hub. These figures therefore do not only concern Black Ops 6, but also that of other games accessible via the hub, including Warzone. Just before the release of Black Ops 6, we saw around 70,000 players on average on the “Call of Duty” application on Steam for a month, so we can imagine that around 230,000 players out of the 306,000 arrived for Black Ops 6.
Regardless, it seems that the release of Black Ops 6 is already a big success for Microsoft and Activision and that its availability in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass is not a barrier to sales. As of this writing, Call of Duty is the fifth most popular game on Steam, behind Counter-Strike 2, Banana, DOTA 2 and PUBG.
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