'Xbox Dropped the Ball' Analyst Says Call of Duty is Underperforming in the Worst Year Possible

Video game analysts say Xbox “dropped the ball” on the wrong year, as the Call of Duty franchise appears to be underperforming compared to past years. While Call of Duty has dominated the first-person shooter genre for over two decades now, player counts and general reception to Black Ops 7 have been significantly lower than the series is used to. Analysts theorize that it could be due to several factors, with a key one being that there have been many other exciting shooters released in 2025.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, the latest entry in the Black Ops subseries and the franchise as a whole, launched on November 14 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. The shooter has been in the hands of players for nearly an entire month now, and even recently launched its big Season 1 update on December 4, which saw Black Ops 7 fully integrated with its free-to-play Battle Royale counterpart, Warzone.

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The game’s publisher, Activision, hasn’t released any official figures for how the game is performing. But despite some lackluster player count numbers on Steam, having only peaked at 100,000 concurrent players shortly after launch, a recent PlayStation Blog post did reveal that Black Ops 7 topped the PSN charts in November 2025, beating its competitors, ARC Raiders and Battlefield 6. While it was the most digitally downloaded game on PlayStation 5 last month, it’s unclear if it was by a wide margin.

Analysts Theorize Why Call of Duty Is Struggling In 2025

Despite being a chart-topping release on the PlayStation Store, analysts say the game is underperforming. In a new interview with Eurogamer, The Game Business’s Chris Dring and Alinea Analytics’ Rhys Elliot theorized on why 2025 was the worst possible year for Xbox to “drop the ball.” Dring says the franchise has “had a hard year,” citing the low daily active users, with September being a low point for the Call of Duty HQ app in terms of active players. “Call of Duty is underperforming this year due to a combination of community burnout, questionable creative and business decisions by Activision/Microsoft, and strong competition,” Elliot said, noting how 2025 has been a tremendous year for shooters.

After the disastrous launch of Battlefield 2042 in 2021, EA and DICE returned with a bang this year and found massive success with Battlefield 6, which peaked at more than 747,000 concurrent players on Steam and even became the best-selling game of the year. Then came along ARC Raiders just a few weeks later, cementing itself as a standout in the extraction shooter genre and even picking up a nomination at the 2025 Game Awards for Best Multiplayer Game.

“One reason for the decline is the intense competition from rival shooters, mostly Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders. The new Battlefield title had a massive launch, securing the biggest opening in its franchise’s history. Arc has sold almost 8 million copies so far, and the latest Fortnite Simpsons crossover was a hit,” Elliot noted before going on to explain how the community is growing tired of the lack of innovation from Call of Duty.

Although Black Ops 6 shattered records for the series in 2024, Black Ops 7 seemingly hasn’t found the same level of success, and Elliot predicts another reason could be the Fortnite-like cosmetics that fans were forced to put up with all year. While they remain usable in Warzone, Activision did take player feedback on board for Black Ops 7 and cancelled the divisive Carry Forward feature. This was in an attempt to keep the latest entry more grounded and authentic, thus no longer allowing the community to bring their Beavis & Butt-Head and American Dad skins into Black Ops 7.

Elliot also says Microsoft’s decision to put Black Ops 7 on Xbox Game Pass on day one has “cannibalised traditional full-price game sales on Xbox and PC,” which will undoubtedly be another huge factor when it comes to sales. Reports previously claimed that although it was massively successful for the service, Black Ops 6 supposedly lost $300 million in potential sales due to its inclusion on Xbox Game Pass. “Our estimates have signalled time and time again that Game Pass cannibalises game revenues – and Call of Duty is no different,” Elliot stated.