While Xbox may have been hoping to attract more players to its platform by making games like Gears of War: E-Day exclusive, according to Circana analyst Mat Piscatella, it hasn’t quite worked out that way. Speaking to The Game Business, Piscatella made note of how the PS5-exclusive Marvel’s Wolverine has offered a stark contrast to Gears of War: E-Day’s commercial performance.
“If you look at the weekly sales cadence of accessories and hardware, the Wolverine DualSense was the bestselling accessory of the month. The [console] bundle sold out. There weren’t huge quantities, but that really helped boost PlayStation 5 sales that particular week.
“In terms of an old-school, ‘here’s an exclusive game and we’re going to sell some consoles and some accessories with it,’ I think it’s about as good as you could hope from an IP that isn’t the level of Spider-Man.”
However, when it comes to Gears of War: E-Day, Piscatella pointed to Xbox hardware sales continuing to decline over the course of the year. “Saying Gears is going to be exclusive hasn’t made any difference in terms of the hardware trend. In fact, it keeps getting worse.”
Along with this, even Xbox’s other initiatives, like taking Call of Duty off Game Pass and launching its disc-to-digital program, haven’t really made much of a dent. “All of the new programs they’re putting into place, at least in the sales and engagement data that I look at, I’m not seeing [them] have any positive impact. The disc-to-digital program hasn’t changed their sales of new physical software trend at all.
“Saying Gears is going to be exclusive hasn’t made any difference in terms of the hardware trend. In fact, it keeps getting worse.
“[Xbox] took Call of Duty out of Game Pass on day one. And in the engagement data I’m looking at through our player engagement tracker, basically you lost a ton of engagement on Xbox because it’s no longer on Game Pass, and you got no benefit. It’s really hard to find any signs of positivity or hope on that platform right now.
While the company might be getting praise from the community and positive social media engagement, this hasn’t seemed to have resulted in any tangible difference in sales for the company.
“Everything they’re doing seems to be getting Twitter likes from the most passionate part of their fan base, but other than that, in terms of actual results, I’m not seeing anything right now. And I’m looking really hard.
“And Gears is a gorgeous game. That is a Gears-ass Gears of War game. But by making it exclusive, you chop the legs out from under its potential as an individual title in order to boost your platform, and at least in the short term, it hasn’t made a difference.”
Interestingly, Piscatella even spoke about the effect Grand Theft Auto 6’s upcoming release may have on consoles. While “it’s hard to parse out exactly what percentage of any life [in console sales] is from one game or another,” he acknowledged that while the PS5 has been doing well enough, Xbox sales have been declining. “So do people not know the game’s coming out on Xbox?”
Microsoft acknowledged that its hardware sales had fallen by 14 percent in the latest quarter, and Xbox CEO Asha Sharma attributed this fall to the company being unable to meet the demand.
