Activision's latest Call of Duty ports have sold multi-million copies on PlayStation, showing Microsoft's willingness to use nostalgia where it counts.
Microsoft and Activision made a surprise move in July by releasing two decades-old Call of Duty games on PlayStation. Both Black Ops I and II were launched on modern PlayStation consoles for the first time, in the middle of a hot summer month, for an affordable $20-40 price. This was the first time these games have been playable on PlayStation since the PS3 era, and the potent combination of nostalgia and pent-up demand led to an explosion of sales and engagement.
Popular Now: Xbox Series X can now run PS5 games thanks to a new emulatorPredictably, this led to massive sales; PS Store rankings showed high positioning for the Black Ops duo, and new estimates from Alinea Analytics indicate the games could have made over $400 million in sales on PS4 and PS5.
"That pent-up demand detonated. As per our estimates, Black Ops 2 sold 8.2M copies on PlayStation (93% on PS5, 7% on PS4) for about $325M, while Black Ops 1 sold 3.0M (94% via PS5) for $110M. Combined, that's $435M on PlayStation in under a month," Alinea analyst Rhys Elliott said in the newsletter.
The move also shows Microsoft's willingness to embrace nostalgia in a way that's forward-thinking and investment-oriented. Launching these games on PlayStation opens up more monetization opportunities, as Call of Duty games are typically portals for microtransaction spending, while creating engagement points for PlayStation Plus active subscriptions via online multiplayer.
The original Black Ops II remains one of the best-earning video games of all time with $500 million earned in 1 day, and it would be interesting to see what those revenues are like today.
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To date, the Call of Duty franchise has made well over $35 billion in total lifetime revenue.
