Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 vs. Battlefield 6 is closer than you’d think in new sales data

Battlefield6 still isn’t matchingCall Of Dutyon consoles, but there remain signs thatActivisionis nervous aboutEA’s offering.

The launch of a new Call Of Duty is rarely that interesting, from an industry watching point of view, since they’re always guaranteed to do well. This year is different, though, thanks to the huge success ofBattlefield 6.

Aside from strong reviews, the game hassold extremely welland has seen a higher peak player countthan Call Of Duty on PC, which is impressive despite the fact that Battlefield is a PC-orientated franchise and Call Of Duty is more popular on consoles.

Even so, Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 may need to rely on console sales more than usual, as PC pre-orders for the game are struggling to come close to that of Battlefield 6.

According to Alinea Analytics, which shared its data withGamesIndustry.biz, Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 has sold less than 200,000 PC copies in Steam pre-orders, as of October 27, which is 18 days before its launch on November 14.

That’s already pretty low for a big name game, but Battlefield 6 reportedly sold nearly a million PC pre-orders within the same amount of time, further cementing it as a true competitor to Call Of Duty’s crown, at least on PC.

Does this mean Black Ops 7 is going to crash and burn when it launches? Almost certainly not. Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, analyst Rhys Elliott argues that Battlefield has always been more popular on PC than Call Of Duty, describing the latter as a ‘multi-platform powerhouse with a sales base that extends far beyond Steam and the PC market.’

Plus, whileSteamDBlists Black Ops 7 as only the 173rd most wishlisted game on Steam, Vic Bassey of Video Game Insights doesn’t think that’s enough to indicate that less Call Of Duty fans plan on purchasing the game.

‘A lot of factors come into play,’ he says. ‘However, what we do know is that players already embedded within a gaming ecosystem tend to buy the serialised release rather than adding it to a wishlist.’

Recent player data also shows that for as successful as Battlefield 6 is, it’s still being overtaken by Call Of Duty on console. According to Circana, Call Of Duty was still the second most popular game on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X during Battlefield 6’s launch week.

Specifically, it lists the Call Of Duty HQ, which is the launcher for every current Call Of Duty game available. So, while we don’t have individual player data for each game, collectively the Call Of Duty series is outperforming Battlefield 6, which Circana lists at seventh place on PlayStation 5 and sixth place on Xbox Series X.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 free again this week

During Battlefield 6’s pre-release period, Activision itself was reportedly confident that Call Of Duty was ‘too big to fail’ and thus dismissed any potential threat Battlefield 6 offered, but there are signs that attitude has changed since then.

Earlier this month, Activision made the entirety ofCall Of Duty: Black Ops 6temporarily freethe day beforeBattlefield 6 launched and now it’s holdinganother free trialfor the game’s multiplayer and Zombies mode, that runs from later today until November 3.

Considering EA announced that it will be launching its free-to-play battle royale spin-offBattlefield Redsectoday, the timing is clearly intentional on Activision’s part. At the time of writing, though, Redsec’s scheduled to launch at 3pm GMT, while there’s no confirmed start time for the Black Ops 6 trial.

Admittedly, not much is known about Redsec yet but, if managed correctly, it could wind up drawing people away from Activision’s own battle royale game, Call Of Duty: Warzone.

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