Microsoft boss Satya Nadella has called the recent Black Ops 6 launch the "biggest Call of Duty release ever," saying its arrival set a record for "Game Pass subscriber adds on launch day."
News of the game’s success came at the company’s Q1 FY2025 financial earnings report, which saw the company once again reporting notable gains in gaming revenue, up 43 percent year-over-year.
That’s alongside a 61% YoY growth for Xbox content and services revenue, although growth was primarily a result of Microsoft’s $69bn Activision Blizzard acquisition. In contrast, Microsoft’s Xbox hardware revenue has continued to fall, this time by 29 percent YoY.
Also Read: Activision Is ‘Investigating’ Call of Duty Black Ops 6 Spawn Issues
Activision Blizzard Acquisition Helped Microsoft
The acquisition of Activision Blizzard also helped Microsoft bring good news for investors, thanks to Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s recent launch. While opening weekend numbers saw physical sales of the game fall by 10 percent in the UK compared to Modern Warfare 3, likely due to its day one launch on Game Pass, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella trumpeted the launch in an earnings call, calling it the "biggest Call of Duty release ever".
While the CEO did not share specific figures to back his claims, he noted the game’s launch had set a "record for day one players as well as Game Pass subscriber adds on launch day."
Nadella also revealed that Black Ops 6’s launch had brought in the highest number of opening weekend PC players in the franchise’s history, while unit sales on PlayStation and Steam were said to be up 60 percent year-over-year. Black Ops 6 developer Treyarch repeated several of Nadella’s record-setting claims in a message shared on social media before throwing in some of its own - adding Black Ops 6 had seen the highest number of total players in Call of Duty's history.
Also Read: Analysts Believe COD: Black Ops 6 To Attract 4M New Subscribers
Activision Is ‘Investigating’ Call of Duty Black Ops 6 Spawn Issues
Call of Duty Black Ops 6 players are frustrated with the new shooter’s respawn mechanics. If you check the game’s subreddit, you will see several complaints from players who are struggling to break die-spawn-die cycles, with one player saying they were killed twice on the same death.
"[I'm] getting spawn trapped, getting killed by a player, and then respawning and getting killed again, with both deaths in the same deathcam," said one player. "That's how to spot a bad spawn system. "On some maps, in some situations, it's worse than MW2 release spawning."
In a post on X, Activision said it was "investigating an issue where players automatically spawn in-game rather than spectating when joining in-progress," and said that any further updates about the issue will be fixed in the tweet above.