Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 could increase Game Pass subscribers by 2.5 million to 4 million

The release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Game Pass will hurt the game's sales but bring millions of subscribers to the Xbox service, top analysts say.

True success won't be known immediately, however, as it will depend on whether Xbox can keep subscribers on the service in the months following the game's release.

Wedbush boss Michael Pachter estimates that the integration of Call of Duty into Game Pass could result in a loss of up to six million in sales, based on the assumption that 25% of Game Pass subscribers may have bought the game anyway. However, he adds that the move could result in between three and four million people signing up for Game Pass to access the title.

“Overall good for Microsoft and for consumers,” he told us. “But the headline will be 'Call of Duty sales are down'.”

Ampere's chief gaming analyst Piers Harding-Rolls is a bit more conservative and believes Call of Duty will lead to a 10% increase in Game Pass Ultimate subscribers (i.e. 2.5 million). He also says that not all of these will be completely new users, as this will include those upgrading from Game Pass Core and Game Pass Standard (Call of Duty will only be available in the “Ultimate” tier). In fact, he expects a “good portion” of new subscribers to come from these tiers.

Harding-Rolls adds that while there will inevitably be some loss in premiums, this can be offset through other forms of monetization.

“The removal of the 14-day $1 trial offer is an indication that Microsoft needs to maximize its subscription revenue from launching one of gaming's biggest franchises at launch,” he says.

“There is no doubt that adding the latest Call of Duty will be expensive for Microsoft, at least initially. However, Call of Duty is increasingly primarily a live service game, heavily monetized in-game. Microsoft will trade premium full game sales in exchange for a larger audience that can be monetized in-game instead.

“One of the key questions is how this might impact the monetization of the game and whether there is a greater burden on monetization in the game compared to previous entries in the franchise. In terms of expanding the audience, Xbox and PC are likely to be key.” Growth platforms offer some potential at launch, but I think the Call of Duty streaming opportunity is more suited to gaming on TV screens and PC monitors than on mobile devices where Call of Duty Mobile and Warzone are already popular.”

Brett Hunt, market analyst at Newzoo, also believes Black Ops 6 will attract a stronger audience this year, certainly compared to Modern Warfare 3 last year. However, this is not just due to its inclusion in Game Pass.

“Black Ops has always been well received and with a mutually exclusive campaign from Modern Warfare, a new movement system in multiplayer and the return of turn-based zombies, this should result in numbers much closer to Modern Warfare 2 than Modern Warfare 3. This is “Call of Duty has grown the most in recent years, and the numbers will likely reflect that.”

Newzoo says Modern Warfare 2 attracted 21.7 million monthly active users in the US, compared to just 12 million for Modern Warfare 3.

A key point of discussion concerns the impact Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will have on PlayStation. Since last generation, Sony has had a content and marketing exclusivity agreement with Activision over Call of Duty, which has now ended. Game Pass is also not available on PlayStation 5. So could this cause the audience to shift from PlayStation to Xbox?

“Those who own both an Xbox and PlayStation console may be moved towards playing the game on Microsoft's devices, but cross-platform play and multiplatform accounts mean this isn't necessarily a permanent decision,” explains Harding Rolls.

“In fact, there could be a scenario where PlayStation-first multi-console players switch to Xbox to play the premium campaign while continuing to play F2P Warzone on their preferred console under a single Activision account. So I'm not convinced that will last longer.” The average PlayStation audience will be significantly disrupted, although Sony may be eroding its storefront share of premium sales to some extent.”

“I am not convinced that the long-term audience on PlayStation will be significantly disrupted, although Sony may erode its storefront share of premium sales to some extent.”

Piers-Harding Rolls, Amp

All the analysts we spoke to agreed on one thing: the success of this move will depend on whether Xbox can retain the new subscribers it acquires beyond the game's release phase. And whether they are ready to implement a strategy to continuously acquire new subscribers until 2025.

Dr. Katan Games' Serkan Toto believes there is pressure on Xbox to get this right.

“We all know that Microsoft's gaming division hasn't grown as expected, which is why Microsoft greenlit the mega deal with Activision Blizzard in the first place,” he said. “Now the pressure on Xbox is enormous: if Call of Duty doesn’t do that.” What can make the Game Pass business model work?

“No one knows what Microsoft's expectations are for Game Pass growth post-launch, but if Black Ops 6 doesn't meet its goals, things could get very bleak, very quickly. I also wonder if Black Ops 6 will be able to retain subscribers in the long term or if the numbers start to fall sharply again early next year after the initial hype dies down.

However, Pachter believes that Call of Duty is the perfect game to captivate users.

“Call of Duty players generally play much longer due to multiplayer and frequent map losses,” he says. “I think the average is closer to six months and many play all year round. The year-round players will sign up and stay.”