Call of Duty: Black Ops 1 and 2 are the top two trending games on the PlayStation Store, beating even GTA 6 pre-orders. Microsoft published them. They skipped Xbox. The bare-bones PS4 and PS5 ports arrived with minimal enhancements, a resolution bump and nothing more. No Wager Matches. No remaster treatment. Yet the nostalgia pull is so strong that both titles surged past Grand Theft Auto 6 on the PlayStation charts, a game that isn't even out yet.
Xbox players already have access to Black Ops 1 and 2 through the backwards compatibility program. The problem: those versions are overrun with hackers.
Xbox 360 security layers have been cracked for years, and online matchmaking on the back-compat versions is virtually unplayable. The new PlayStation ports are siloed away from older systems, making them far less susceptible to cheaters. Microsoft owns Activision. It spent $69 billion to acquire the company.
It controls the Call of Duty franchise. And yet the clean, playable version of two of the most beloved entries in the series is a de facto PlayStation console exclusive. As a gesture, Microsoft made the Black Ops DLC free on the Xbox Store. The base game is still $40, and still broken.
Windows Central's Jez Corden reported that the PS5 ports find games almost instantly with no hackers encountered. On Xbox, the experience is the opposite, a situation Corden describes as "completely screwed out of the reunion PlayStation players are having right now."
The ports were handled by Iron Galaxy, the same studio that delivered solid work on Tony Hawk's Pro Skater remasters. The lack of polish here appears intentional, not a skill issue.
Shipping proper Xbox ports that cut off the existing back-compat versions would strand Xbox 360 users, tens of thousands still play on the original hardware. So Microsoft left the broken versions in place and shipped the fix to PlayStation instead.
GTA 6 will reclaim the top spot once Rockstar releases Trailer 3 and the game launches later this year. But the damage is done.
Xbox fans are watching a Microsoft-owned franchise dominate Sony's store charts while their own versions rot.
