A “reset” is underway at Xbox. Rapid changes and rubber-banding vibes have left a lot of people feeling confused and shaky about what comes next for the console maker. The announcement at Xbox’s June showcase that Gears of War: E-Day won’t be coming to PlayStation 5 was one of the more notable shifts, an about-face from Microsoft’s wider multiplatform pivot over the last two years. How to square that move with Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s stark memo about dismal profit margins for the tech giant’s gaming division?
While exclusives are a necessary building block of any console-first gaming strategy, they also lock studios and publishers out of revenue from players on other platforms. As Xbox prepares for mass layoffs due to poor financials across different parts of its business, rumors have begun to fly that the current pivot back toward some level of Xbox Series X/S exclusivity is only a temporary move to earn good will.
Some have even theorized that preventing Gears of War: E-Day from coming to PS5 is secretly a move designed to prove that exclusivity isn’t financially viable for Xbox and end it once and for all. Microsoft is saying emphatically that’s not the case.
“These rumors are false,” Xbox chief strategist Matthew Ball wrote on X on June 16. “Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will stay exclusive. There are no conversations and have been no conversations to ‘reverse course.’ And as we said last week, players can continue to expect signature exclusives from us every year.”
In a Game Business live event last week, Ball said that Microsoft had announced a few exclusives at its recent showcase to prove to fans that the move was part of a deeper strategic shift and not just a one-off for Xbox’s 25th anniversary. The suggestion is that new exclusives will be announced in 2027 and beyond, heading into the expected launch of the company’s next-gen Project Helix hardware, though details on how the decisions will be made about which games are exclusive and which aren’t remain elusive.
Ball was asked during the event why 2026’s Clockwork Revolution would be an Xbox Series X/S exclusive, while Ninja Theory’s upcoming Hellblade sequel Senua would not be. “No comment,” he said at the time. We now know the answer. Microsoft is currently cutting that studio and that game loose.