Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution not getting released on consoles other than Xbox Series X/S is only the beginning for the company, according to its new chief strategist, Matthew Ball. Speaking at The Game Business Live, as caught by VideoGamesChronicle, Ball said that XBOX users can expect more exclusives moving forward, since the two titles mark the beginning of the company’s new “internal framework and strategy” when it comes to exclusives.
“So, I can tell you how we are thinking about it,” Ball said. “We have an internal framework and strategy that we are using to approach exclusives on and off the platform. We announced yesterday that there were two titles, one coming this year, one coming next year. Doing two titles was important. We could have announced Clockwork was going to be exclusive later at the end of the year, when we got closer and closer to the 25th anniversary. We could have kicked off 2027 by talking about that as an exclusive.”
“It was important for us to include two titles so that people understood this was not a one-off; it was not commemorative. We were not saying it’s our 25th anniversary, it’s Gears’ 20th anniversary, we’re returning to Xbox, here’s an exclusive. This is the start of a program.”
He went on to note that it is now an important thing for XBOX that its supporters continue to find value in their investment in its consoles and ecosystem. This also means that the company wants to keep them as XBOX users even going forward. To achieve this, the company will go back to featuring exclusive console releases in the future, since it is important for the company’s branding and growth as a platform.
“Players can expect a reliable pipeline that validates their historical investment in the Xbox platform, keeps them as Xbox players going forward,” he said. “And everyone in the industry understands that exclusives are important to the growth and branding of that platform.”
However, it looks like XBOX might be taking a Sony-styled approach with its games, with major live-service titles still getting multiplatform releases. Referring to Halo: Campaign Evolved and Fable, Ball said that, since the company had already announced that they would be coming to PS5 as well, it will be going forward with those commitments.
“We have a third bucket of titles, those titles that we have previously announced or previously committed with our partners, with players, with teams, that we’ve decided to maintain those commitments,” he explained.
Ball credits this new strategy of returning to console-exclusive releases as being the result from new XBOX CEO Asha Sharma. According to him, Sharma “has been clear” about the state of XBOX’s business these days, and has started initiatives to turn things around. However, he acknowledged that these initiatives won’t result in an overnight turnaround for XBOX, and that it will still take the company some time to regain the trust and adoration of its users.
“Every day we are going to come more and more outwards about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it,” said Ball. “And the reason why I say that is, today I should give you a more comprehensive answer. Here are all the titles that players can expect this year, next year, and thereafter that are going to be exclusive.”
“We know what those are going to be. We know how we’re going to make those decisions. We know how we’re going to be evaluated against those decisions. But what’s important there is that framework has to be external eventually. Everyone in this audience is an expert, an aficionado of the field, and I understand why they are saying we still don’t quite get it. We have to communicate that internally. We have to communicate that to our partners.”
“But then most of all, at the end of the day, the average player, the average current Xbox player, and the player that we want but don’t have today, have to understand it very simply. And that’s where we’re going. We’re just not ready to do it yet.”
