Call of Duty topped the charts on PlayStation in April, but interestingly, not on Xbox Series consoles. Considering Microsoft’s controversial purchase of Activision, it begs the question: why are people flocking to Sony’s platform instead?
It is hard to imagine that the company is not at least concerned with something like this. Fans have also voiced their frustrations on social media at the tech giant’s handling of Call of Duty so far.
Call of Duty Has Topped PlayStation Charts
According to the statistics of the most played games on PS5, Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone came out on top for PS5, with Fortnite in second place, while on the series consoles the stats were flipped, with Fortnite on top.
Other notable places were Helldivers 2 in sixth place on PS5 and Fallout 4 in the same spot on Xbox. Helldivers 2 being lower makes a lot of sense due to the recent controversy.
Call of Duty (MW3 + Warzone) was the most played game in the US on PlayStation 5 in April and #2 most played game on Xbox Series X|S.
April saw the return of Rebirth Island in Warzone. pic.twitter.com/uLIrpPF0UL
— CharlieIntel (@charlieINTEL) May 9, 2024
April was a contentious month for the game as Arrowhead Game Studios and Sony faced much backlash over the decision to make PSN accounts mandatory for Steam, so the game naturally saw a dip in its player counts.
In April, Rebirth Island returned to Warzone. The map was originally designed for Black Ops 4’s Blackout Battle Royale and was hugely popular when originally introduced in Warzone. So its return naturally increased interest in the game and gave the player count a boost.
Is PS5 the New Home of Call of Duty?
With PS5 seeing the biggest player counts, does this make it the new home for Warzone? The company is surely not happy with this development. There was much concern when it first acquired Activision Blizzard about which games would become console exclusives, with the first-person shooter being at the center of that discussion during that time.
Now that it has passed and remains accessible on all platforms, it’s one of Activision’s biggest money makers; there’s no way it was going exclusive. So the company surely has to be wondering if it wasted its time buying Activision when players prefer to play the game on the competitor’s hardware.
Cod continues to prove it's not dying
Microsoft: hmmm should we put the best call of duty games on gamepass? Nah , surely they won't do well or make more people subscribe to gamepass. Let's not give the players what they want and show them us buying Activision was for nothing
— sergio (@sherrera1098) May 9, 2024
A player states that the company could do something to make the shooter franchise more popular and boost its players, such as by putting the best games on Game Pass. This would do a lot for the brand. If the newest games were available at launch on the service, then it would encourage more people to adopt that system.
Also, live service games are a major point of contention among gamers, so getting the next entry “free” at launch would make people a lot more receptive to engaging with live service practices. What do you think about this? How do you think Xbox can use Call of Duty to help itself? Let us know in the comments!
