According to the reporting during Summer Game Fest, an almost-finished PS5 version of Gears of War: E-Day exists somewhere within dev The Coalition’s office.

The game was rated for release on Sony’s console in various regions, and Microsoft accidentally spilled the beans by broadcasting an unedited version of the third-person shooter’s trailer, including a PlayStation logo at the end.

But under new leadership, the Redmond firm has decided to back away from the PS5, and bring back console exclusives.

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Early estimates for Gears of War: E-Day suggest this may not be having the impact the manufacturer expected.

Analyst Rhys Elliott of Alinea put out some interesting data this weekend: the critically acclaimed outing has sold just 230k copies across Steam (168k) and Xbox Series X|S (62k).

It’s important to underline, as always, that the research group’s methodology is unclear. There’s still debate about how reliable its figures are, although some trusted sources say it tends to land in the right ballpark.

The reality, however, is that even if it’s miscalculated by a wide margin, the numbers would likely still look incredibly soft.

There is context, however.

Alinea estimates that 1.7 million people have booted the game through Xbox Game Pass, with approximately 722k paying $30 for advanced access. But as Elliott points out, this means “Xbox is, in effect, charging its most valuable customers the least”.

The analytics firm predicts that the game has made about $37 million in revenue, which is presumably a drop-in-the-bucket on a seven year development cycle. Obviously, we don’t know what Microsoft’s expectations for the title are.

It’s also worth pointing out that Xbox Game Pass subscribers are technically paying for access to this title through their monthly membership, although how that revenue is divided up between different games and studios is not entirely clear.

Microsoft’s decision to remove Call of Duty from the subscription day one implies the business model isn’t really working as intended.

The elephant in the room here, then, is that almost-finished PS5 version, which presumably would have had some demand.

While Xbox would have had to pay Sony’s 30% licensing fee to flog the shooter on the PS Store, it’s been proven that PS5 owners are generally more willing to shell out full-price for games than players on Microsoft’s machine.

I’m personally not sure how well Gears of War: E-Day would have performed on the PS5; there’s an argument that many lapsed Xbox games have transitioned to PlayStation, and may have picked up the title.

But it’s also a busy release schedule, and players’ time and money is being divided between a variety of different titles. Last year’s Gears of War Reloaded is predicted to have sold around 700k units on Sony’s console, although that was a remaster of a remaster of a game from 2006.

There may be an argument that these estimates reflect a franchise on a downward trajectory. The game has received wide-spread critical acclaim – including a rare 10/10 from our friends at Pure Xbox – but if these numbers are correct, the market doesn’t seem to be responding to it.

Microsoft, for the record, has not put out a statement to counter Alinea Analytics’ estimates. It has maintained throughout, however, that Gears of War: E-Day will remain an Xbox console exclusive.

It’s going to be interesting to see whether these numbers, if accurate, test its resolve.

[source x.com]