Analysts believe that Black Ops 6 could bring in up to four million new Game Pass subscribers

Analysts predict that Black Ops 6, the latest entry in the Call of Duty franchise, will attract between 2.5 million and four million Game Pass subscribers as the first entry to launch on the service.

The details:

• GamesIndustry.biz interviewed a number of reputable industry analysts, who concluded that the release of Black Ops 6 could result in a massive influx of new Game Pass subscribers. Wedbush Securities managing director Michael Pachter predicts that the inclusion of BO6 on Game Pass Ultimate from day one will result in three to four million new members, but will also contribute to approximately six million lower sales, based on the assumption that 25% of subscribers might have purchased the game regardless.

• Ampere's head games analyst, Piers Harding-Rolls, was much less optimistic, estimating that the game would bring in only 2.5 million new subscribers, a 10% increase. He also believes that many of these sign-ups will be Game Pass Core and Standard users upgrading to the Ultimate tier, which is the only tier that includes day-one first-party releases.

• Harding-Rolls went on to say that, given the decline in game sales, Microsoft may look to monetize the game in other ways, such as a greater emphasis on in-game content like cosmetics. “There is no doubt that adding the latest Call of Duty will be expensive, at least initially, for Microsoft,” he said. “However, Call of Duty is increasingly a live-service game first and foremost that monetizes strongly in-game. Microsoft will be trading premium full-game sales in exchange for a bigger audience that can be monetized in-game instead.”

• Microsoft most likely saw a noticeable surge of hardcore COD players signing up for Game Pass yesterday, as the game was released nearly a day earlier in New Zealand. Some PC players chose to purchase a Game Pass subscription, which allowed them to change their Xbox account location to New Zealand, tricking the game into giving them early access rather than waiting for its global release.

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