Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 does not seem to be doing well, launching to poor critic and user reviews, lower player numbers and apparently much weaker sales than its predecessor. More specifically, the game sold just over 400,000 copies on Steam in its first 6 days, a drastically lower number than Black Ops 6‘s 2.3 million in the same time frame.
According to a new report, Microsoft aren’t too pleased with the numbers, either.
The information comes from Hope@TheGhostOfHope, a fairly reliable Call of Duty insider. But do keep in mind to take everything said with a pinch of salt, especially as Hope doesn’t specify how they came by this information.
According to Hope, “Microsoft believes BO7 is a good game but the financial performance is below expectations”. He goes on to say that expectations were already lowered last year after BO6 underperformed, with one source describing its decline as having “fallen off a cliff”.
“Microsoft has also supposedly told higher ups within Call of Duty that changes are very much required and nothing is off the table including studio mergers and a complete rethink of monetization models within the franchise,” wrote Hope.
It’s worth noting that nowhere is it suggested that they stop publishing Call of Duty every single year, which is likely one of the biggest causes of the franchises troubles.
Then again, even a declining Call of Duty still sells millions of copies. In Europe, Battlefield 6 outsold it by 63%, but CoD is still likely to be one of the highest selling games of the year.
