You might think that since Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (which was released last Friday) is the 21st game in the franchise, it wouldn’t be that highly anticipated. You’d be wrong. Last week’s entry set multiple records when it launched.
Specifically, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the game set new records for Game Pass subscribers, particularly for a first-day game launch. That’s, of course, to be expected—Call of Duty was a major reason why Microsoft acquired Activision, the longtime publisher of the series.
It gets a little zanier, though. The Internet service provider Comcast says Black Ops 6 was directly responsible for 19 percent of its overall traffic the week of the launch, according to a report in The Verge.
That’s partly due to the game’s popularity, but it can also be attributed to its huge file size. A full install of Black Ops 6 can take up to just over 100GB, depending on your platform—and possibly as much as 300GB if you also install game modes tied to the previous entries in the series, like the immensely popular battle royale Warzone. That will wreak havoc on users’ data caps; Comcast imposes a 1.2TB monthly cap in many states.
After a US court ruled earlier this week that Google must open its Play Store to allow for third-party app stores and alternative payment options, Microsoft is moving quickly to slide into this slightly ajar door.
Sarah Bond, president of Xbox, posted on X (formerly Twitter) Thursday evening that the ruling “will allow more choice and flexibility.” “Our mission is to allow more players to play on more devices so we are thrilled to share that starting in November, players will be able to play and purchase Xbox games directly from the Xbox App on Android,” Bond wrote.
Because the court order requires Google to stop forcing apps to use its own billing system and allow for third-party app stores inside Google Play itself, Microsoft now intends to offer Xbox games directly through its app. Most games will likely not run directly on Android, but a revamped Xbox Android app could also directly stream purchased or subscribed games to Android devices.
Until now, buying Xbox games (or most any game) on a mobile device has typically involved either navigating to a web-based store in a browser—while avoiding attempts by the phone to open a store’s official app—or simply using a different device entirely to buy the game, then playing or streaming it on the phone.
The unexpected success of Palworld continues to be one of the biggest gaming stories of 2024 so far, as developer Pocketpair says the game’s sales and Xbox downloads have exceeded 19 million, with 12 million in sales on Steam and 7 million players on Xbox. Microsoft has also announced that the game has been the biggest third-party launch in the Game Pass service’s history, as well as the most-played third-party title on the Xbox Cloud Gaming service.
These numbers continue a remarkable run for the indie-developed Pokémon-survival-crafting-game pastiche, which sold 5 million copies in its first weekend as a Steam Early Access title and had sold 8 million Steam copies as of a week ago. There are signs that the game’s sales are slowing down—it’s currently Steam’s #2 top-selling game after over a week in the #1 spot. But its active player count on Steam remains several hundred thousand players higher than Counter-Strike 2, the next most-played game on the platform.
Sometimes described (both admiringly and disparagingly) as “Pokémon with guns,” Palworld‘s unexpected success has driven some Internet outrage cycles about the possibility that it may have used AI-generated monster designs and allegations that its designers copied or modified some of the 3D character models from the actual Pokémon series to create some of the game’s more familiar-looking monsters.
The latter allegations circulated widely enough that The Pokémon Company issued a statement last week, saying it would “investigate” an unnamed game that matches Palworld‘s description; as of this writing, no actual legal action has been taken against Palworld or Pocketpair. Third-party modders who have tried to put actual Pokémon creatures into Palworld have apparently gotten some cease-and-desist letters, though.
Regardless, the game wears its influences on its sleeve. Aside from the Pals that look like Pokémon, the game’s progression and crafting mechanics owe a lot to games like ARK: Survival Evolved, and the actual monster-catching mechanics have a more-than-passing resemblance to Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
If you count the Xbox Game Pass numbers as “sales,” Palworld‘s combined numbers are on track to overtake those of the two main-series Pokémon titles on the Nintendo Switch, Sword/Shield and Scarlet/Violet. Nintendo says these games have sold 26.02 and 23.23 million copies, respectively, making them the sixth and seventh bestselling titles in the entire Switch library.
Nintendo doesn’t break out sales figures for each title individually, counting each sale of Sword or Shield toward the same total—this makes sense because they’re the same basic game with slightly different Pokémon, though it does mean there’s some double-dipping going on for fans who buy both versions of a given game for themselves. You have to look at proxies like Amazon reviews to get a sense of which individual version has sold better—Violet currently has more reviews than Scarlet, while Sword has more reviews than Shield.
