Microsoft spent $69 billion to turn your Xbox into a Black Ops 6 ad

The fruits of Microsoft’s labor to purchase Activision Blizzard last year are finally coming to fruition. And it’s all about Call of Duty, baby.

The company’s $69 billion acquisition of the makers of games like CoD, Overwatch, Diablo, World of Warcraft, and more is now taking shape in an all-new way: by customizing every facet of your gaming setup to sport Black Ops 6’s orangey color scheme.

Need a new controller? Get ready to Black Ops your life with the customizable Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 or the default Xbox Wireless Controller, both with the “redacted” white, orange, and black color scheme used in BO6’s imagery and marketing.

But that’s not all. For $55, you can get an Xbox Series X console wrap to turn your existing console into one that sports the same colors and the admittedly awesome Cerberus head logo from the game.

Obviously, Microsoft’s big Activision purchase was meant to bring the entire catalog of games into the fold. But there’s no doubt that CoD is the big fish of the group, so it will be very interesting to keep an eye on BO6 sales to see if bringing Game Day One to Game Pass on both console and PC will affect revenue.

Oh, and there’s also a CoD-ified hoodie ($60) and sweatpants ($55), too, sporting the Xbox logo just so everyone knows which mega-corporation now owns the IP. Merchandising like this is also a side effect of the purchase and could continue to bring in money for the franchise. And I’m sure it will.

As for the sales of the game itself, we should hopefully know more not long after Black Ops 6 launches next week on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, and PC via Steam and Battle.net.