This weekend sees the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, the latest installment in the venerable military action franchise. And while this is usually just business as usual for Call of Duty publisher Activision, it may actually be a turning point for the future of Xbox.
Activison was acquired by Microsoft for $68 billion, a ginormous figure that doesn’t even count the legal fees Microsoft likely spent doing battle with antitrust regulators. It’s a deal that transformed the publisher into one of many jewels that adorn the tarnished crown of Xbox Game Studios. I say tarnished because of a number of shifts in messaging and strategy that have left players and analysts confused if not insecure about the future of Xbox.
It’s clear that Call of Duty was the IP that Microsoft was most keen to acquire. With some installments generating a billion in revenue, its as close as any Activision IP comes to being the deal’s raison d’etre. The fiscal math for the franchise is going to be different this year though, when it launches on the premium tier of Game Pass, the subscription service that Xbox has made the cornerstone of its business strategy in this generation.
How Black Ops 6 fares under these parameters is important. To position it as a driver of Game Pass subscriptions, comes worries that traditional sales suffer. What a Game Pass launch does is shift the foundations of Call of Duty’s commercial prospects by asking whether people would rather play the game ‘for free’ on Game Pass than shell out seventy American on PlayStation. What has genuinely shaken things is the overhaul of Game Pass itself.
What was once a buffet of games with no caveats has become a tiered service. Only those subscribing at $19.99 will get Black Ops 6 on day one, as well as other future premium releases like December’s Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Black Ops 6 will still be available on the PC tier (PHP 175 for PH users) but that simply acknowledges the price sensitive nature of PC players.
Game Pass regulars have balked at these changes, which came at a time when growth for the service had plateaued. With Black Ops 6, Call of Duty is tasked with walking a delicate tightrope. Players need to covet the shiny new release enough for Game Pass subscriptions to grow, since it is among Xbox’s most valued metrics, but it also needs to sell a bajillion copies everywhere else in order to help pay off the $68 billion they spent to get it along with the entirety of Activision Blizzard.
I’m fairly uncertain it can walk that tightrope. Already we’ve seen a number of high profile disappointments in the AAA gaming industry. PlayStation exclusives like Final Fantasy XVI and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 have not secured the kind of ROI they need to justify their respective budgets. Even last year’s much anticipated Starfield did not secure much growth for Game Pass. Simply put, leveraging exclusivity to maximize fortunes has not yielded the same successes of generations past.
If a significant percentage of players subscribe to Game Pass for Black Ops 6 and then cancel, it will lead to a major loss in COD’s revenue. It’s also difficult to estimate what impact will be felt on unit sales when Black Ops 6 won’t be supported by Sony’s marketing spends which generally reach farther and wider than Microsoft’s. And no matter what number of units get sold on PlayStation 5, Sony will be drinking from Microsoft’s milkshake.
Even a sales triumph on Xbox and PC will simply be used to pay off the debts to the Microsoft war chest incurred by the acquisition. That makes it very probable that Sony will be the company that enjoys the most success from Black Ops 6. Such pressure would be alleviated if there was evidence of the acquisition on Game Pass, but a year later and the service has not received the bolstering you’d expect from Activision Blizzard’s expansive portfolio.
One would think that Call of Duty’s back catalog would be the obvious addition, allowing the subscription service to drive excitement and anticipation ahead of Black Ops 6. “Subscribe to Game Pass and experience every explosive campaign in the series history,” seems like a pretty compelling message to send Game Pass fence sitters, but alas, we’ve only got Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV. We don’t even have Tony Hawk on Game Pass.
So yes, a lot is riding on Call of Duty Black Ops 6. But that’s a problem of Microsoft’s own design. When a very expensive acquisition yields a very slow to manifest outcome, this is what happens. And if one of the biggest franchises can’t shift people’s perceptions of the games business in Game Pass’s favor, then Xbox will have to add it to the growing number of existential concerns it faces.
