Let’s chat about last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. So, apparently, it was the first game in the popular multiplayer military shooter series to hit Game Pass on launch day. Microsoft must have been feeling generous because they decided to give it away for free to all those paid subscribers on console and PC. Well, turns out, that little act of kindness cost them a whopping $300 million in lost sales of the game. Ouch.
Now, let’s dive into the nitty-gritty details. Bloomberg spilled the beans on this costly experiment by Microsoft. The decision to offer Black Ops 6 on Game Pass for free ended up burning a huge hole in their pockets. This raises some eyebrows over Microsoft’s recent move to jack up the price of Game Pass Ultimate by a whopping 50 percent. I mean, why would they do that if they’re already bleeding money, right? Who knows, maybe they’re onto something we don’t quite understand yet.
The former bigwig at Activision, Bobby Kotick, wasn’t too thrilled about the idea of tossing games like Call of Duty into subscription services. He thought it didn’t make “commercial sense.” Well, Microsoft went ahead and did it anyway after acquiring Activision. Surprisingly, sales of Black Ops 6 were higher than Modern Warfare 3, but a whopping 82 percent of those sales were on PlayStation. Looks like Xbox and PC players weren’t as eager to jump on the Game Pass bandwagon. Subscription gaming services did see a nice bump though, with a 16 percent increase year-over-year after the release of Black Ops 6. Maybe there’s something to this whole subscription model after all, huh?
Not really sure why this matters, but if Microsoft lost $300 million in sales because of Black Ops 6 on Game Pass, they’d need around 15 million new subscribers to make up for it. That’s a whole lot of players. With the recent price hikes, though, the math might just work out in their favor. Even if Black Ops 7 sees a similar drop in sales, Microsoft would only need 10 million new sign-ups in November to break even. Or just 834,000 over the course of a year. Easy peasy, right? The latest changes to Game Pass hint that Microsoft might be backtracking on their original day-one release promise. Game Pass Premium now costs the same as Ultimate did a few years back, but you won’t get those first-party Xbox games until a year later. And there’s no guarantee you’ll ever get your hands on Call of Duty games. Who knows what’s next for Game Pass? They’re even testing out a free ad-supported tier that’s all about cloud gaming. Microsoft’s CFO is pushing Xbox to find new ways to rake in more cash. Looks like they’re more focused on squeezing money out of current subscribers than expanding their gaming empire.
And that’s a wrap on this wild ride through the world of gaming subscriptions. Who knows what the future holds for Game Pass and Microsoft. One thing’s for sure, they’re not afraid to shake things up and see what sticks. Let’s see how it all plays out in the end.
