Black Ops 2 was far and away the biggest of the two, selling 8.2 million copies, leaving just 3 million to Black Ops 1. Even before we had hard figures to compare, it’s clear players have been talking about Black Ops 2 the most on Reddit and social media.
As for the split between console generations, Alinea estimates that 93 percent of Black Ops 2’s copies were sold on PS5, with just 7 percent on PS4. The original Black Ops has a similar split, with 94 percent on PS4 and 6 percent on PS4.
Despite the controversy the ports caused due to their lack of meaningful technical upgrades over the original games, and the fact they continue to suffer from lobby hacking and exploiting, millions clearly didn’t care.
So who are those people? Alinea analyst Rhys Elliott offered some notable data on the cohort who flocked to buy the Black Ops ports. It’s estimated that most of the ports’ audience is made up of 30-40 year-old players who remember the originals fondly.
Looking at the top 10 games the same group also plays provides more context there. 23 percent have played the Black Ops 1 port – meaning they bought both. 19 percent have used the Call of Duty app, where Warzone and modern COD titles live. And 10 percent are Rainbow Six Siege players.
Outside of shooters, the millions who bought the ports have also played EA Sports FC 26 (24 percent), and NBA 2K26 (13 percent). Elliott also noted that those players have played some of the most popular games on PlayStation, such as Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto 5, Minecraft and even Roblox.
Overall, Alinea estimates Microsoft to have made $435m (£323m) in sales from just the two games alone, which it said was about as much as Forza Horizon 6 – one of Xbox’s biggest launches – made through game sales alone since release.
