Microsoft Assures That Black Ops 6 Has Broken Every Call of Duty Series Record. Thanks to Activision's Acquisition of Blizzard, Xbox’s Results Shot Up
Microsoft's new financial report indicates that their games branch is doing well, thanks in large part to Activision Blizzard. In addition, Black Ops 6 is the biggest launch in the series' history.
Microsoft has published its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2025 (June – September). The company is currently doing great, and profits from game sales have significantly increased despite the declining interest in the Xbox console. Activision Blizzard's titles play an important role here, with the recently released Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 at the head.
Large increase in revenue from games
The Redmond giant recorded revenues of $5.62 billion from its gaming division in the first quarter, which represents a 43% increase year-on-year. However, it is worth noting that Activision Blizzard is responsible for the entire growth. We remind you that the company takeover was finalized in October 2023.
The situation looks worse in terms of consoles, as revenues from Xbox sales amounted to $525 million during this period, which represents a decrease of 29% year on year.
It also seems that Microsoft's policy of reaching as many players as possible is working very well at the moment. “ Unit sales across PlayStation and Steam were up more than 60% year over year,” said company CEO Satya Nadella.
Game Pass with a new record
The company's overall services revenue increased by 61% (53 percentage points thanks to Activision), with the Xbox Game Pass subscription also contributing to the increase. Unfortunately, the exact number of subscribers was not provided, but the increase in profits was certainly influenced by the July price increase. Nadella commented very positively on the results acieved by Game Pass and the gaming department in general.
"[Game Pass - ed. note] set a new Q1 record for total revenue and average revenue per subscriber. [Microsoft - ed. note] 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."
Black Ops 6 is the biggest premiere of the franchise
We already saw from the activity results that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is doing very well - the game has outperformed last year's Modern Warfare 3 in this respect. It turns out, however, that it was the biggest launch in the history of the series, having a major impact on the number of Game Pass subscribers.
Black Ops 6 was the biggest Call of Duty launch ever, setting a new record for day one player number as well as the number of new Game Pass subscribers on launch day.
It is worth adding that the entire new Call of Duty series sold over 500 million copies since the premiere of the first part in 2023.
