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What Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s Xbox Popularity Could Mean for the Franchise’s Future

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has already been quite a successful release for the longstanding FPS franchise, with fans seemingly being receptive to its thematic changes from the IP’s recent focus on the Modern Warfare sub-franchise. Not only is the content of the title quite different from what fans have come to expect, but the way in which the game has been delivered has also broken a lot of records for the series.




Perhaps the most unique element of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6‘s release was its presence on the Xbox Game Pass subscription service as a day-one title. Black Ops 6 remains one of the most high-profile and surprising additions to the Xbox Game Pass catalog, and this ambitious move from Activision and Microsoft has seemingly paid off. Early figures concerning Call of Duty: Black Ops 6‘s player numbers and demographics bode extremely well for the game’s popularity on Xbox consoles, likely marking the start of a new era for how Call of Duty‘s annual releases are delivered and marketed.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Has Proven the Effectiveness of the Franchise’s New Xbox Partnership


The hyper-successful annual release schedule of Call of Duty has seen the FPS franchise be a dominant force on consoles for around two decades, with its multiplayer experience in particular defining some of the best console gaming online experiences throughout recent history. The massive popularity of Call of Duty has predictably led to an ongoing battle between the likes of Xbox and PlayStation for partnerships with the IP, coming with invaluable perks like advertisement deals, exclusive content, and even early access to certain content.

Xbox had a successful partnership with Call of Duty between 2010 and 2015, with the platform receiving earlier releases for coveted things like DLC map packs during this time. Activision then shifted to a CoD partnership with PlayStation instead, with the Sony platform enjoying its own lucrative benefits that have only just come to an end.

The conclusion of this deal with PlayStation was largely down to Microsoft’s recent record-breaking $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, with the Call of Duty IP sitting as the crown jewel of this deal and now falling under Microsoft ownership. As expected, Microsoft is using this acquisition to its full advantage with Call of Duty in particular, and Black Ops 6 is the first title to really show what this looks like and how effective the move could be going forward.


Xbox Game Pass Content Delivery Seems Likely to Define Call of Duty’s Future

Of course, Black Ops 6‘s Xbox Game Pass presence has brought a huge number of new and returning eyes to the franchise, likely being a major factor behind Black Ops 6 having the largest opening weekend ever for Call of Duty in terms of total players and hours played. This is further evidenced by the recent announcement that Black Ops 6 is more popular on Xbox than other platforms, breaking a nine-year streak that saw PlayStation as the most dominant platform for the series.

This seems like very good evidence that Microsoft and Activision’s ambitious Game Pass approach has been successful, and players should expect day-one Game Pass launches to be the new norm for Call of Duty. It seems unlikely that Microsoft will venture too deeply into Xbox exclusivity for Call of Duty content given its outspoken stance against this, but at the very least, Black Ops 6 seems like a massive indicator of Xbox cementing itself as the go-to platform for accessible CoD releases from here on out.

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