Black Ops 6 is the first demonstration of Microsoft’s bulimic acquisition strategy in the gaming sector. Indeed, it is now a year since Microsoft completed its historic acquisition of Activision Blizzard. During the company’s Q1 2025 earnings conference call (Microsoft’s fiscal year is offset from the calendar year), Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed that the game had set new records, and that the impact on the Game Pass service was significant.
Last week’s launch of Black Ops 6 was the biggest Call of Duty release of all time, setting a record for the number of players on day one, as well as for the number of Game Pass subscribers on launch day. Unit sales on PlayStation and Steam also increased by over 60% year-on-year. This is testament to our strategy of reaching out to gamers where they are, enabling them to play more games on the screens they spend their time on” (Satya Nadella to investors).
What about Microsoft’s Xbox strategy?
According to Activision-Blizzard, with this spectacular launch, the Call of Duty series has sold over 500 million copies to date. This places Call of Duty among the best-selling game franchises in history, alongside Tetris and Pokémon, but still behind Nintendo’s Mario licenses.
At the same time, Xbox console sales fell by almost 29%. At Sony, PS5 sales have also been falling since the beginning of 2024…But the decline of Xbox began much earlier. While the PS5 Pro could enable the Japanese manufacturer to maintain its position, Microsoft’s hardware strategy remains unclear. Some say that a revolutionary console will arrive in 2026, while others simply suggest that the Xbox brand will be “delegated” to OEMs such as Asus and others, to be turned into a PC like any other…
