Call of Duty’s massive move to becoming a day one launch title on Game Pass definitely impacted console sales this year, but maybe not in the way you think.
According to Circana Retail Tracking Service’s Mat Piscatella, overall hardware spending at $927 million was “flat” compared to November 2023. But the interesting numbers are that the PS5 saw a 15 percent increase in console sales, while Xbox dropped a whopping 29 percent compared to last year at the same time.
This means that, despite Black Ops 6 launching on day one on Game Pass on Oct. 25, the following month saw a drop in hardware sales that was double the size of the growth of its main competition (PS5) compared to the same exact time in 2023, even with a Black Friday deal that had the Series X|S marked down.
Odds are if you asked Microsoft about these numbers, it wouldn’t care, as it seems dead-set on making its games available on all platforms, including PS5, and pivoting away from a “console war” that it lost a while ago. And since the company now owns Activision Blizzard, it serves to profit from all CoD sales anyway.
As of September 2024, over 30 million more PS5s had sold compared to Xbox Series X|S, so the gap has only widened since then. But BO6 being available on Game Pass lead to an eight percent increase in non-mobile video game subscription spending, and that service is where Xbox seems to be putting most of its emphasis.
But if you ask Xbox players who have invested in the console ecosystem, they’d likely express disappointment. If all of Xbox’s games are available everywhere, then why get an Xbox? It seems that this sentiment expressed itself in November console sales, as well.
Piscatella said that, despite BO6 being available as part of Game Pass, it’s the number one-selling game for a second month in a row, and now second overall in sales in 2024 behind College Football 25, which set a record of its own.
