Early signs on Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 sales and overall reception were great, and now we have confirmation from Microsoft and Activision. During the company's Q1 2025 earnings call, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed that the game set new franchise records and also helped the Game Pass subscription service reach records of its own.
One year since we closed our acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, we are focused on building a business positioned for long-term growth, driven by higher-margin content and services. You already see this transformation in our results as we diversify the ways that gamers access our content. We set new records for monthly active users in the quarter as more players than ever play our games across devices and on the Xbox platform. Game Pass also set a new Q1 record for total revenue and average revenue per subscriber. And as we look ahead, our IP across our studios has never been stronger.
Last week's launch of Black Ops 6 was the biggest Call of Duty release ever, setting a record for day 1 players as well as Game Pass subscriber adds on launch day. And unit sales on PlayStation and Steam were also up over 60% year-over-year. This speaks to our strategy of meeting gamers where they are by enabling them to play more games across the screens they spend their time on.
Granted, there were little doubts in both cases. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is, after all, the first new game in the franchise to launch day and date on Game Pass, which would inevitably have expanded its player base (and the subscription service's user base). The bigger question is whether, in the long term, this will be financially beneficial compared to the traditional way the game has been sold before the massive acquisition.
Activision is also celebrating, of course. The official X account revealed that, unsurprisingly, Black Ops 6 has registered the biggest opening weekend ever for Call of Duty in terms of total players, hours played, and total matches. Moreover, the publisher told The Washington Post that the first-person shooter franchise has now surpassed 500 million units since its debut twenty-one years ago.
Are you enjoying Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 so far? Let us know in the comments below.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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