With this packed release season of indies, blockbusters, double-As, triple-As, it was always a given that some titles wouldn’t exactly prosper. As much as we talk about how amazing the past several weeks have been, people only have so much money to spend on day one for video games. And even if they like a franchise, heck, even love it, deep down, in their heart of hearts, they’ll still take the cheaper option, every time. As you’ve probably guessed by now, this is about Gears of War: E-Day.
Alinea Analytics recently released estimates for The Coalition’s prequel, which is launching more than seven years after the last game in the series. It’s a technological marvel, built from the ground up to leverage Unreal Engine 5. It’s one of 2026’s higher-rated games (and think about how much ground that covers), managing an 87 Metascore on Xbox Series X from 76 reviews. The campaign has received extensive praise for its action, set pieces, and plot, even if it’s more about the journey than the destination.
A peak concurrent player count on Steam of a little under 32,000? Irrelevant, because most paying customers are undoubtedly on console or playing through Xbox on PC. In fact, according to Circana’s Player Engagement Tracker, E-Day ranked fourth in global Xbox players on October 6th, right behind Fortnite, Roblox and NBA 2K27. So there are indeed a large number of players.
With all that in mind, how did it allegedly perform? According to Alinea, it sold 230,000 copies. About 168,000 were apparently on Steam, while Xbox consoles and PC made up 62,000.
Obviously, these are estimates, and official sales numbers have yet to be confirmed. The analytics firm has been fairly accurate before, especially recently with Star Wars Zero Company. It estimated one million sales in its first month, and even if Bit Reactor didn’t confirm the time frame, the figure was accurate. That said, these are far from official, so take them with some skepticism. Whether they’re somewhat close or E-Day actually sold double, it’s still worrying.
No, not just because of the rumors about its apparent $400 million+ budget, or however much it ended up being. It’s because of Game Pass.
Another interesting facet Alinea reports is the total number of alleged subscribers who played E-Day. Apparently, it’s 1.7 million, of which 722,000 reportedly bought the Premium Edition Upgrade for $30, no doubt to play early. As a result, Xbox apparently won in revenue, more than doubling Steam’s, but the total, estimated at $37 million, isn’t exactly something to celebrate.
If anything, it’s a reminder of Xbox’s flawed strategy and how Game Pass can’t co-exist with high-profile first-party exclusives. It probably made sense for leadership to start a console-exclusive push sooner rather than later. You know, when hardware revenue is down, and both consoles and PCs are more expensive than ever. Attempting this with Call of Duty, a franchise that remains popular despite nightmarishly horrid to above-average entries over the past several years, is a bold strategy, but not the craziest. But with Gears of War: E-Day, a follow-up launching seven years later, that too in a few months? When its predecessor recorded three million players in its first weekend when Game Pass was at its most affordable, despite the Xbox One’s woes? It’s all kinds of baffling.
Under the old regime, I would say give it time and not worry because E-Day is adding value to Game Pass, though it recently came out that Xbox spent $20 billion+ and barely scraped to half a billion yearly revenue without Activision Blizzard King over the past five years. But there’s a reason The Coalition is reportedly worried about layoffs, mostly from feeling disposable.
After all, Xbox moved Halo to Activision and effectively reduced Halo Studios to a support studio. Keep in mind this is after Halo: Campaign Evolved allegedly sold 1.2 million copies on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5. Several other reported factors arguably played a far bigger part in that decision, but I digress.
It also gutted World’s Edge, combined Playground and Turn 10 (the latter already a support studio after last year’s mass layoffs), and moved Fallout: New Vegas, which had suffered extensive layoffs, to Bethesda. As hard as you’ve worked over the past many years, none of that matters when this company is seeking results, sharpish. While also kneecapping its studios with a subscription service that offers their $70 titles for almost a third of that price. And sadly, this isn’t a situation where Xbox can give up the Game Pass ghost, as it’s a core part of revenue.
In this scenario, I’m reminded of former Sony Interactive Entertainment president Shawn Layden’s words: Pick a lane. Go fully third-party or compete with PlayStation in exclusives. What would the latter even look like? Probably Xbox pulling its first-party titles off of Game Pass as day-one launches, and not adding them to the service for years. Maybe turning high-profile properties like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls into exclusives.
The problem with the current exclusive strategy is that attempting it in this generation, when the fate of the Series X/S has already been decided, feels like a misstep. Even before the price hikes, very few people were buying Xbox hardware. At this point, it’s trying to cater to existing console owners or those who primarily game with Xbox on PC. And if those estimates are anything to go by – again, even if you double them, that’s not a viable strategy.
If Xbox had released Gears of War: E-Day on PS5, it could have sold more copies and recouped more of those development and marketing costs. It already primed PlayStation fans for more Gears after Reloaded last year. And when Project Helix is ready to be revealed, then it could announce a return to exclusives. And as unlikely as it seems that Xbox could win over PlayStation, even if the PS6 ends up costing $1,000, its exclusives and other strategies, especially the excellent disc-to-digital feature, could drive more early adopters.
Instead, E-Day is an exclusive on a console few people care about, while Forza Horizon 6 and Fable will launch on PS5 because…reasons. Well, one reason is that Xbox doesn’t want the bad PR from going back on the previous regime’s announcement. Maybe it thought that E-Day standing out wouldn’t be all that conspicuous, even as two first-party titles are ready to launch on another console next year. Despite denying any plans to reverse its exclusives strategy, it may just pivot for Clockwork Revolution next year.
Or maybe it’ll make it so Game Pass subscribers who play it on day one get an extra 10 hours of cloud gaming to drive “engagement” and show its plans are working. Maybe it will take every other road possible, however contradictory or absurd, and proclaim success, even as layoffs continue rolling and more developers feel disposable. “Clarity is kindness” and whatnot.
As it stands, Gears of War: E-Day certainly deserves better, and if there’s any hope under these hypothetical circumstances, it’s that positive word of mouth spreads and it earns more players. The story may end with humanity on Sera facing near-annihilation, but that doesn’t mean The Coalition deserves to see life imitate art.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
