Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 could add up to 4 million new Game Pass members
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be released on October 25 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series S/X. The first-person shooter also became the first Call of Duty title in history to be available on Xbox Game Pass on launch day. Microsoft expects the addition of Black Ops 6 to Game Pass to drive more subscriptions to its service. Industry analysts have provided an estimate of the growth the company can expect. The latest Call of Duty could reportedly bring in four million new subscribers to Game Pass.
Analysts expect Black Ops 6 to boost Game Pass
GamesIndustry.biz spoke to several analysts about the likely impact of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on the first day of Xbox Game Pass. Most said the game would add millions of new subscribers to the service, but would take a hit to unit sales of the popular military shooter.
According to the reportpublished last week, Wedbush chief Michael Pachter expects Black Ops 6 to add between three and four million new Game Pass subscribers. However, he also claimed that access to Game Pass could lead to as much as $6 million in lost sales for the game. This was based on the assumption that 25 percent of Game Pass subscribers would buy the game anyway.
Other analysts also echoed a similar view in the report, but some were more conservative about Call of Duty attracting new players to Microsoft’s game subscription service. Ampere’s chief games analyst Piers Harding-Rolls said he expected a 10 percent increase in the number of Game Pass Ultimate subscribers following the launch of Black Ops 6. According to him, that increase would also include new subscribers and those upgrading from the Game Pass Core and Game Pass Standard tiers, which will not ship on the first day of launch for Xbox first-party games.
The analyst told GamesIndustyr.biz that Call of Duty on Game Pass will hurt the game’s sales and initially cost Microsoft, but that in-game monetization capabilities will likely reach a wider audience with Game Pass. “There’s no doubt that adding the latest Call of Duty will be expensive, at least initially, for Microsoft. However, Call of Duty is increasingly primarily a live service game that makes a lot of money in-game. Microsoft will trade premium sales of full games in exchange for a larger audience, which can be monetized in the game instead,” he said.
However, all analysts said that the long-term success of bringing Call of Duty to Game Pass would depend on whether Microsoft could keep these players on the subscription service beyond Black Ops 6’s launch period, the report said. Many players might leave Game Pass or downgrade their subscription level after playing Black Ops 6.
Earlier this year, Xbox president Sarah Bond had confirmed that Game Pass had reached 34 million subscribers. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be available on Game Pass Ultimate on Xbox, PC and Cloud.
Microsoft acquired Call of Duty maker Activision-Blizzard late last year in a $69 billion deal after a protracted regulatory battle with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority. The company said earlier this year that it would be bringing Activision titles to Game Pass, starting with Diablo IV.
