Black Ops 7 suffered the series' worst launch ever in Japan.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 appears to be off to a rougher start than usual when it comes to CoD launches. This is especially true in Japan, where the latest Call of Duty game sold fewer copies during its release than any other game in the series' history, according to early figures.

According to figures shared by Zuby_Tech, Black Ops 7 only sold 12,311 units at launch.is the lowest for a Call of Duty game, dating back to Call of Duty 3 in 2007. All of the 12,311 copies sold were on the PS5, but even though PS4 sales appear to be less than 1,800 units, Black Ops 7 still made less than what its previous holder with an unwanted record, Call of Duty 3, managed at launch.

There is no mention of Xbox numbers. Given how poorly the console is selling in Japan, it's probably too small to even be tracked.

Why are Call Of Duty sales falling off a cliff in Japan?

There's a lot to consider about all the hows and whys here, and if sales in Japan are anything that Call of Duty creators should worry about, they should. Call of Duty is not as big in Japan as it is in the US or other parts of the world. However, even taking that into account, the fact that 12,000 copies were sold at the time of release is a worrying figure.

For one thing, it's less than half of what Black Ops 6 will sell in 2024, but that's not the whole story. Interest in Call of Duty has been declining in Japan since 2018. Black Ops 4 had the second-best Japanese launch weekend in series history that year, selling over 233,000 copies. That number has declined every year, with the figure remaining above 30,000 for Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops 6, and has now plummeted to 12,000 for Black Ops 7.

A soldier looking down on the scene on battlefield 6.

relevant

Battlefield 6 sold twice as many copies as Black Ops 7 in Europe during each opening week

It's not even close.

As already mentioned above, Xbox consoles don't sell well in Japan, so it's hard to blame Xbox for having games on Game Pass either. This is not a reflection of Japanese gamers playing Call of Duty on Xbox instead of purchasing the game on PS5. In most cases, it shows that Japanese people are leaving the series.

Call of Duty has been giving off that “we think we're too big to fail” vibe for too long. We started with Modern Warfare 3, which was criticized for being a repackaged expansion pack of Modern Warfare 2 sold at regular price. It rebounded somewhat thanks to Black Ops 6, but fell again in Black Ops 7.

The last few installments of CoD have had no serious competition, and that may be what makes all the difference here. Xbox and Activision probably didn't believe Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders would impact Black Ops 7 sales figures. But that seems to be exactly what's happening here. Black Ops 7 surpassed 100,000 concurrent players on Steam shortly after launch. Meanwhile, Arc Raiders continues to approach 500,000, while Battlefield 6 peaked at nearly 750,000.