Call of Duty is a franchise that is now owned by Microsoft and Xbox. The company is committed to continuing to release all games on PlayStation and Nintendo for at least 10 years and everything suggests that this will not stop after that when we see the sales figures that the license generates at Sony.
8 out of 10 Black Ops 6 games have been sold on PlayStation!
Mat Piscatella, Executive Director and analyst at Circana (formerly NPD) once again released some interesting data about the American video game market in October, and here we are focusing particularly on Call of Duty Black Ops 6 in order to to understand its impact in the Xbox ecosystem.
We learn that total spending planned for October 2024 in the United States for video game hardware, content and accessories increased by 10% compared to the previous year, to reach $4.7 billion. Since the start of the year, we have seen growth of 1% compared to the previous year, at $45.4 billion.
This increase is mainly due to the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 in October, compared to the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023) in the November tracking period of the previous year. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was the best-selling video game in October in the United States and already ranks 3rd among the best sellers of 2024 year-to-date in this territory.
Perhaps the most impressive number is this: my PlayStation platforms accounted for 82% of total Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 console sales during the October tracking period. That is to say, 8 out of 10 games were sold on PlayStation.
The impact of Xbox Game Pass is now proven
This share of sales largely in favor of PlayStation shows two things. First, Black Ops 6 is doing very well since its sales are up 23% overall. But why are they so popular with PlayStation?
Let's remember if this is still necessary, but this is the first time that a Call of Duty game is available directly in the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscription service. We can therefore imagine that a significant portion of Xbox players preferred not to buy the game and play it via their subscription.
This hypothesis is confirmed with data from Circana which indicates that subscription spending on non-mobile video games increased by 16% compared to the previous year. The release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 as part of Xbox Game Pass was the main driver of growth, the company says. We can therefore learn four main lessons from the release of Black Ops 6 in Game Pass:
- Black Ops 6 at the Game led to an increase in subscription spending
- Black Ops 6 shifted some game sales from Xbox to PlayStation
- Black Ops 6 didn't seem to lead to massive sales cannibalization
- Black Ops 6 didn't seem to provide a significant boost to Xbox console sales
Finally, Mat Piscatella notes that all questions regarding the impact of subscriptions remain open, and whatever current beliefs, it is not certain that these most important tests will change anyone's mind on the subject . The analyst believes that releasing Black Ops 6 in Game Pass may not have helped the game's sales, but that it was not a handicap.
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