CoD: BO7 physical sales are down 61% compared to BO6. What went wrong?

Today, thanks to a social media post from Christopher Dring, the Editor in Chief and Co-Founder of The Game Business, we now have a sense of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7’s first weekend physical sales. The latest game in the massively popular first-person shooter series launched last Thursday, making this past weekend the all-important launch weekend for the game. Normally, a Call of Duty launch would be something other games would want to avoid getting in the way of, but Battlefield 6 launched just over a month ago, and the popular breakout hit ARC Raiders continues to set concurrent records with each passing weekend since its launch on October 31st, including during Black Ops 7’s launch weekend. Has Call of Duty finally faltered? Was Microsoft acquiring Activision for $69 billion all it took?

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 physical sales are down 61% compared to Black Ops 6

According to Dring, “Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 had a smaller UK retail launch (physical sales) than Battlefield 6…” referring to data from GfK, a German market research company. This is already huge news, given the long-running rivalry between these two franchises, further solidifying Battlefield 6 as a major step forward for the series. But the top reply asked a very relevant question: “How did it compare to Black Ops 6?” the previous game in the Call of Duty series. According to Dring, Black Ops 7 physical sales were down 61% compared to Black Ops 6, prompting the person who asked the question to simply respond: “Oof.”

Christopher Dring shares data on social media.Source: Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Developer: Treyarch. Twitter / X

The social media posts shared by Dring were initially spotted by Metro and shared on the PC gaming subreddit, where fans had some choice words. Fans claimed that the Call of Duty developers “didn’t learn anything” and that the series “needs a hard reset.” Even our own Darius Matusiak wrote in their review of Black Ops 7, “…for me this year’s release is a pass. I’d rather return to multiplayer in Modern Warfare 2019 or replay the campaigns featuring Russell Adler.” Generally, fans and critics agree that this edition of Call of Duty is not hitting the way it has in the past, even recently.

It is worth noting that this only considers physical sales. The industry-wide switch to digital has been slow and inevitable, so seeing a drop in physical sales is nothing new. But 61% is far below the norm. Conveniently, this is not the only time that Dring has posted on social media about Call of Duty sales trends. Back in 2023, Dring shared more GfK data showing that the drop from 2022’s Modern Warfare 2 to 2023’s Modern Warfare 3 was 25%, which is much more reasonable than the 61% reported today. There are certainly many factors at play here. It’s possible that as Microsoft’s ownership falls into place, more players are choosing to try out Game Pass rather than buy a physical copy. There could also just be a huge shift to digital this year for some reason. But, no matter what the exact cause, it’s a notable statistic for one of the longest-running, massively popular video game series.

For now, we will have to wait to see if any more information comes out about Call of Duty’s performance. There will surely be another Call of Duty game next year. Will it continue this trend, or will it right the ship? Not only for Activision, but also for Microsoft and Xbox. It’s no secret that a huge portion of that $69 billion acquisition was to have Call of Duty under their umbrella. It would be terrible timing for the long-running series to falter now.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7

November 14, 2025

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• Activision
• Treyarch
• Call of Duty (franchise)
• game sales