So a while back we got this from the devs:

Meanwhile on Steam, Black Ops 7 launched to a peak of 86,652 players.
(link to screenshot : https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G5wBFUpW8AAwa_D.jpg?name=orig )

This is low for a Call of Duty game.

Last year, it was around 300k.
Back in 2022, it was almost 500k.


So...

Arc Raiders launched to 462k players (currently has 254k in-game atm)
Battlefield 6 launched to 747k players (currently has 198k in-game atm)

Right now on steam, Call of Duty has 72k players online, playing it.


Is this just steam being way off mark? and Console place is very different? 
Or are sales of Black Op 7 going to be like 1/3 or 1/4th of normal (last years?)

Online talk about the game doesn't seem very positive either.
Alot of people are saying it doesn't feel like "call of duty" and fortnite'ification, of the game has changed it for the worse.

Too early to tell?
Whats everyone's opinions here.

It is COD,

 I remember MW being announced and people being pissed that it isn't WWII, the year after they got pissed because it is again WWII and has stupid zombies, then pissed because Black ops killed the realism!!!   Then got pissed because it went in the future, then again pissed because it has no campaign, then pissed because it is cross platform for so long, then pissed because it used Skilled matchmaking and this year pissed because it has no skilled matchmaking... 

I am just curious for next year...

I enjoyed the campaign, the co-op makes it fine and the end game is potentially a lot of fun atleast it feels fresh compared to a campaign you will never play again.

sales wise gamepass killed it obviously, COD BO6 sales were horrible but now gamepass is more expensive sales will be better; well thats said by some when gamepass price went up lately.

I think Arc Raiders/BFVI and honestly a huge amount of games made the game sales slow and probably never reach close to BO6 sales.

Hype for this does seem really low for a COD game so looking at how poorly its performing on Steam compared to even MWIII does make me think this one could underperform in a big way. It'll still sell over 10m but for COD standards this could be the worst selling one in a long time which would be very deserved. I don't see many people other than the gamers who pick up COD every year getting this one though that group is very large.

Console gamers will keep it alive, but we all know COD sucks.

Wait so on one hand.... you think Gamepass going up in price, is going to help CoD sales.
On the other hand, your saying Arc Raiders and BF's success likely did hurt it?

I get that.... and I agree.

This is the big one though.

"COD BO6 sales were horrible"
"Arc Raiders/BFVI...... made the game sales slow and probably never reach close to BO6 sales."


So you agree sales will likely be lower than normal, as I think.

I wish there was some way to get Playstation numbers for sales.
Like SteamDB has.

Obviously won't fail, but it might fall to Vanguard levels or lower.

It'll be an off year for CoD. Like Infinite Warfare / Vanguard / MWIII.

Sales will be down a lot from BO6, though in the USA at least it will probably still be the top selling title. Wouldn't surprise me if BF6 outsold it in Europe.

Directly following BO6 with another black ops title, and the strong recent releases of BF6 and Arc Raiders are the one-two punch that will make this a disappointing (for CoD standards) sales result.

(i) It’ll sell at least 30mil. Yes CoD is too big to fail unless the devs get a little too experiment and change the formula. (ii) I see no reason to desire any game to fail. The success of CoD means only good things for the overall industry, as it would for any successful game.

Was a bit sarcastic because last year we had the discussion 'Bo6 sales will be bad because of gamepass' but it ended up being the biggest one in Revenue and potential sales (best selling game on PS5 as an example)  And yes it sales will be lower especially at first, the hype was huge because it had no competition and it was a return to Black ops whlie now it has competion and people are tired of Black ops.. that's why I am curious for next will it be a MW game and people hyped again because it is no black ops?  Doubt they return to WWII again.

I don't think CoD is say in a Pokemon brand situation, CoD has harder competition, and in fact it looks very likely that Battlefield could outsell CoD this year.

I expect that CoD will just have a slow decline from here on, not only competition from the likes of Battlefield, but also from a demographic perspective, younger players will ever more trend towards stuff like Fortnite compared to CoD, so when people age out of gaming and CoD, they won't have enough new players to replace the ones leaving. This will happen over many years so the yearly sales won't shift much but i think CoD has seen its peak in terms of sales and popularity.

The Activision purchase is a far bigger version of what Sony did with Bungie, buying up something that will only continue to decline afterwards, the main difference is of course that CoD is much more popular so the decline will be more gradual than it was for Destiny.