Why Xbox took Call of Duty out of Game Pass

This week, Xbox announced that Call of Duty will no longer be added to Game Pass Ultimate at launch, instead being added around a year later. This was paired with a reduction in the cost of the service, from $29.99 down to $22.99 on Xbox and from $16.49 to $13.99 a month for PC Game Pass.

Talking to GamesIndustry.biz, Mat Piscatella of Circana and Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis saw it as a sensible step that would help to improve Game Pass revenues, but disagreed on Call of Duty’s impact on the service. Harding-Rolls believed that Xbox was “leaving a substantial amount of revenue on the table through a loss in premium sales” while Piscatella was unconvinced.

I wanted a third opinion, so I went to Newzoo, who kindly provided some data which indicated that while 2024’s well-received Black Ops 6 boosted Call of Duty players on Xbox, it did not have the same impact on revenues – and the much more poorly-received Black Ops 7 had a muted impact on both Xbox players and revenue.

It comes with some caveats: this data is for the “Call of Duty HQ” app which includes all Call of Duty releases, including the free-to-play Warzone, so it doesn’t show per-title revenue. It does show total Call of Duty revenue, along with player counts for the most recent three games (Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7) and platform split for six markets (USA, UK,IT, FR, DE, ES). The time periods don’t perfectly align, because Black Ops 6 launched in October while the other titles launched in November, so we’ve tracked the first complete months.

It shows that while the inclusion of Black Ops 6 in Game Pass drove a jump in active users on Xbox compared to other platforms, the effect did not persist for Black Ops 7.

“CoD’s entry into Game Pass with BO6 drove a one-time step-change in Xbox engagement: MAU rose 71% versus the MW3 window and Xbox share of CoD MAU jumped from 23% to 34%,” Manu Rosier, Director of Market Intelligence at Newzoo, told GamesIndustry.biz.

Platform split by revenue, first 5 months (USA, UK,IT, FR, DE, ES) (Source:Newzoo)

Platform split, montly active users, first 5 months (USA, UK,IT, FR, DE, ES) (Source:Newzoo)

“Over the same window, Newzoo’s digital revenue pull showed Xbox revenue flat-to-negative, while PlayStation maintained a positive revenue-to-MAU correlation, so the engagement uplift did not translate into Premium unit sales growth on Xbox. We read that as direct evidence of Game Pass substituting for full-game purchases.”

The data then plummets for Black Ops 7. Xbox MAU fell 52% from the Black Ops 6 peak, landing at 29% platform share, which is a lot close to the 23% share claimed by Modern Warfare 3. That reversion to prior form suggests that Black Ops 6 was a one-off boost for the Xbox platform – and when it wasn’t repeated for Black Ops 7, it made sense for Microsoft to pull the game out.

This will also have the benefit of a healthier balance sheet for the Call of Duty brand overall, as Xbox sales revenue can be directly attributed to its bottom line – although the lion’s share of CoD players and revenue remains on Playstation.

It’s not a happy balance sheet overall, though, with the Newzoo data highlighting a sharp drop in Call of Duty players and revenue following the launch of Black Ops 7 – coming in at less than a third of Black Ops 6 revenue and half of Modern Warfare 3 revenue at the same period after launch. This echoes data provided to GamesIndustry.biz from multiple different providers shortly after the game’s release, at which point Activision announced that it would no longer release CoD versions back-to-back.

The player count has ticked up in March, and Activision will be looking to the upcoming Season 3 drop (featuring Robocop) to maintain that growth. The pressure will be on for this year’s release, widely expected to be Modern Warfare 4, to restore the brand to health – and be part of Xbox’s newly-announced commitment to “maintain and grow in live games and long-term stewardship.”