Call of Duty Black Ops 6 UK physical sales drop in shift to Game Pass

Physical sales of Call of Duty Black Ops 6 have dropped by 10 percent in the UK compared to Modern Warfare 3, likely due to a shift to Game Pass for Xbox players, as noted by GamesIndustry.biz’s Chris Dring.

PlayStation 5 accounted for 80 percent of sales, while Xbox Series X/S was 12 percent, and PS4 eight percent. This is mostly in line with previous games in the series, which has traditionally dominated on PlayStation.

Again, these are physical sales only in the UK, though they provide a suggestion of how popular the game is on Game Pass.

As expected, Call of Duty Black Ops 6 reached the top of the UK’s all-format boxed game charts, knocking EA Sports FC 25 to second place. Sonic x Shadow Generations took third place.

Nintendo, overall, continues to have a strong presence in physical sales, with Super Mario Party Jamboree, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Nintendo Switch Sports all in the top ten.

Over on Steam, Black Ops 6 is off to an impressive start for PC players.

While concurrent player numbers are now grouped under the Call of Duty launcher, this reached a peak of 306,460 players at the launch of Black Ops 6.

This is the third highest Call of Duty player peak since the launcher began in 2022. Its all-time concurrent peak player count was with the launch of Warzone 2.0 in November 2022, reaching 491,670 concurrent players. Second was a free weekend a few weeks later in December, reaching 307,950 concurrent players.

It’s a strong start for the game, then, though the impact of the release on Game Pass subscriptions will be the real test for Xbox since Microsoft acquired Call of Duty developer Activision Blizzard.

Ahead of the game’s release, Microsoft pulled its £1 Xbox Game Pass trial.

It’s not all rosy, though, as the game has a ‘Mixed’ reaction on Steam due to performance issues and crashes. Activision is also investigating spawn issues following complaints from players.