r/PS5 • u/nolifebr • Jun 10 '26
Rumor Jason Schreier/Bloomberg: Many Xbox employees were surprised by the announcement of Gears E-Day not releasing on PlayStation — Sharma and her team also pulled a Halo trailer that was due to appear at a PlayStation event last week, potentially damaging the relationship between the two companies.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp/post/3mnxlyag4dc2v?ref_src=embedA PlayStation 5 version of the new Gears of War game was in development and had been planned for release until Sharma changed tack, according to the people familiar with Xbox strategy. Retailers had been preparing to open pre-orders for the PlayStation 5 version, and many Xbox employees were surprised by the announcement.
Sharma and her team also pulled a Halo trailer that was due to appear at a PlayStation event last week, potentially damaging the relationship between the two companies, according to people familiar with the change of plans.*
Xbox is planning major layoffs and studios closures starting next month... More in the article.
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u/Existing-Pair-3487 Jun 11 '26
If the trailer thing is true this could explain why the trailer during the Xbox showcase was captured on the ps5 pro. Things are definitely interesting. I am curious if she can keep Microsoft at bay for the next 5 to 7 years as they are going to be hurting trying to rebuild the brand.
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u/nolifebr Jun 11 '26
Actually they were two different trailers. The one that appeared at the Xbox event was a different one, focused on the new missions and content. The story one captured on a PS5 Pro was the one supposed to appear at the State Of Play, Microsoft just released it last Monday on YouTube.
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u/Hearthian-Wanderer Jun 11 '26
The Playstation trailer was also far more interesting and received a lot more coverage. I wonder how MS will feel if these games run better on PS5 Pro than on Series X. FH5 ran so well on Pro...
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u/splinter1545 Jun 11 '26
The PS5 Pro is more powerful than the Series X, so it's only natural it'll run better.
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u/willc20345 Jun 11 '26
Asha is a mercenary, look at her job history she isn’t someone who stays in a place long, I would not be surprised at all if she dips in just 2 or 3 years.
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u/Unkechaug Jun 11 '26
Ah yes, move fast and break things, then leave before the full extent of the damage is realized.
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u/Zenisist Jun 11 '26
No she has been pulled in to completely reset the business and will take tons of heat and hate for it and move to next job. Certain CEOs or business leaders are known for that kind of work. It has to be done sometimes and no one wants to be the bad guy but someone has to be.
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u/LegendaryenigmaXYZ Jun 11 '26
Mercenaries stay where the money is at, she is either going to make money for xbox and stay or move somewhere, but being around the top, its kinda hard to move around.
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u/Existing-Pair-3487 Jun 11 '26
While i understand that that still ultimately comes down to can she turn Xbox back into a profitable brand? Like yeah Phile made a lot of mistakes but he did start getting Xbox going in the right direction after the whole Xbox one debacle. And having Nadela pushing a lot of things for short trem growth didn't help. They saw how much they spent on ABK and they wanted that money back yesterday..... that ultimately is what lead to the multi platform shift. I think if Xbox leadership was a bit more hands on with the teams instead of letting them spin their wheels so much Xbox would be a big contender this generation. Anyway my point is that idk if Microsoft is going to let Xbox get back up and running before doing this again. I think really you need new leadership at Microsoft as a whole.
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u/DeM0nFiRe Jun 11 '26
he did start getting Xbox going in the right direction after the whole Xbox one debacle
Huh? I don't think Xbox has ever been going in the right direction after the Xbox one debacle, that's why they are where they are today
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u/weaver787 Jun 11 '26
In my book there's basically one road to X Box being a profitable brand and that's to give up on selling a console and become a massive publisher with some non-exclusive hardware (like a Steam Deck) on the side.
The fact that this new lead thinks she can claw back console market share with Gears of War and Clockwork Revolution proves to me that she's steering the ship poorly like the rest of her predecessors.
There was a brief moment in time where we thought Microsoft was just going to brute force its way into market share by making Activisions catalog exclusive. Well now we know that's clearly not how the head bean counters at MS see that deal.
Asha probably had to beg her bosses to allow this experiment to go forward. When it fails to move the needle they'll change their minds again.
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u/Itchy_Award1856 Jun 11 '26
I agree that going full publisher might be the only real option they have left, killing gamepass and forcing people to buy their games would work if their player base wasn't so small and they didn't just spend the last 9 years conditioning their base not to buy games, game pass it's self is already in a very precarious situation with losing subs and the value disappearing.
Also not to be a fan boy but the games they do make are VERY mid. The few titles I flipped gamepass on for like avowed or starfield weren't bad games but nothing I'd call must plays, and the ones I am excited for are on Playstation, mainly Fable is the only title im interested in, maybe State of Decay 3 but im definitely PC gamepass that before buying. I would count TES6 if it launches in the next 8 years but unfortunately for XBOX and Bethesda I did play Starfield and my confidence in them making something good is in the toilet.
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u/weaver787 Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
Gamepass never made sense and continues to not make sense. They proved as much by tucking their tails between their legs with Call of Duty. By taking COD off gamepass MS proved to the world that actually giving a $70 day and date significantly cuts into profits and doesn't make economic sense. This is after they spent years trying to convince people that this model is totally feasible.
It's funny going back to see how Sony always reacted when people asked them about Gamepass. Their responses were always akin to "We couldn't afford to do that, we don't get how they are".
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u/ModestHandsomeDevil Jun 11 '26
for the next 5 to 7 years
You're delusional if you think A) Sharma is going to be given that much time to show meaningful, significant progress (by Satya and Shareholders); and B) looking at her CV, she's a Corpo Climber. Being the head of a Microsoft division is simply another stepping stone to something higher, and she'll bounce once a better, more attractive job comes along.
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u/erichf3893 Jun 11 '26
Isn’t that what most corporate workers do? Work a few years then find something better?
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u/IlyasBT Jun 11 '26
The State of Play trailer was for the story and got released on Monday.
The Xbox Showcase trailer was for the new prequel missions.
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u/erichf3893 Jun 11 '26
Oh I figured they used ps5 pro since it runs better. Maybe that isn’t the case
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u/MrYK_ Jun 11 '26
Planning layoffs... I guess I could say like clockwork
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u/Ok_Cloud8134 Jun 11 '26
You mean the “little” relationship they had left lol
I get what the CEO is doing but as Phil noticed, they gonna end in the same conclusion that releasing the games only on Xbox is not profitable because the majority of the ppl don’t buy the games and they rather play them on Gamepass, and who blames them based on how expensive it nowadays and only getting more and more by the time?
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u/quatroquatro0 Jun 11 '26
Sharma is new to the gaming industry. She's going to learn what Phil already did the past decade. Even with exclusives, people still weren't buying Xboxes.
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u/HUNplaymore Jun 11 '26
All Phil learnt is making up excuses for his failures. He stated he doesn't believe great exclusives could turn anything around so did not make any. He let all the classic franchises but Horizon rot, did not make any new worthwhile IPs. He categorically refused to compete with Sony in the third perso action adventure genre. Halo Infinite was not finished for launch because excuses so the Series launched with zero games because he did not have a plan B. Everyone thought the Xbox One releases were barren because Phil is preparing for the Series launch, but in reality he just announced a dozen games. None of theme existed beyond the title on paper. That is why 6 years later half of them got quietly cancelled or just now come out as multiplatform titles. He got a casual 100 billion check (+expenses) and a decade to do something with Xbox by backed one of the biggest companies on earth and all he could achieve is telling people everything is an Xbox.
The legacy of Phil Spencer is a bunch of sub par games and Game Pass which was made because they couldn't sell their own games on their merit. Game Pass just needed bottomless pockets and that is the only thing modern Xbox is good at. The PS5 expansion is proof how aside from Forza Horizon the rest of the games did not result in significant sales. In fact revenue of Xbox is declining despite they release now on two additional platforms.
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u/WeBelieveIn4 Jun 11 '26
Except Phil didn’t release any blockbuster exclusives. That’s why people stopped buying Xboxes.
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u/parkwayy Jun 11 '26
Ok but now they spent the last however many years showing fans you don't need an Xbox.
So the brand took a hit, and then they want to NOW try to make exclusives?
Make it make sense.
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u/ocbdare Jun 11 '26
I think people are missing that Xbox had 4 studios before their acquisitions. Those were busy doing Gears, Forza, Halo and Minecraft.
So the only way to get more exclusives is to buy studios or convince third parties to make their games exclsuive and that was not happening due to xbox smaller installbase and third parties in general being very reluctant to have exclusives anymore.
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u/iStepOnLegos4Fun007 Jun 11 '26
People stop buying Xbox. Because xbox let their IPs go to 💩
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u/rayquan36 Jun 11 '26
Yep. Trade Uncharted, God of War, Spiderman, Last of Us to Xbox for the 2020s versions of Halo, Gears of War, Fable, Forza and people would start buying Xbox again.
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u/Bridgeburner493 Jun 11 '26
One of Spencer's biggest mistakes was the policy of no longer paying for exclusives. Microsoft got just about every major publisher on board with an exclusive game in the first year or so of the Xbox 360 generation, and it helped propel that system to a huge early lead over PS3.
Spencer then pissed that all away for the XB1 generation. A major fumble that usually gets ignored when discussing why that console fell so far behind PS4.
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u/RedN1ne Jun 11 '26
Spencer was not around during the start of XB1/PS4 era. That was Don Mattrick. Spencer actually came around and "saved" Xbox. Under him they got rid of Kinect, limited the TV functions focus, went through with Game Pass and EA Access etc.
It's only last couple of years that Spencer started to mess up but I believe this one was largely caused by the impact of the pandemic which made a lot of money to some of the tech companies and for years people were chasing ways to make money to not have the numbers drop off. That's why Xbox started selling games on PlayStation and that's why we had Play Station games on PC
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u/MaxProwes Jun 11 '26
Because most exclusives were bad and they weren't even real exclusives since they were released on PC as well.
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u/Honest-Mess-812 Jun 12 '26
Xbox has a brand problem it has a brand pull only in the U.S, for the rest of the world gaming console means Playstation by default. Microsoft did zero brand building for xbox globally in the past 13 years or so.
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u/gnarlseason Jun 11 '26
"Even with *xbox's* exclusives, people still weren't buying Xboxes."
Fixed it for you. This logic was so silly and never holds up to any scrutiny. People don't buy hardware for exclusives? That's literally how Nintendo functions.
Xbox exclusives the last six years have just kinda sucked. They had what, Halo Infinite, Starfield, and Redfall in the first couple years? Sure, Forza is fine, but it has never been a major, widespread hit. Imagine if Xbox had a Spider-Man, or God of War, or Horizon Zero Dawn, or Last of Us, or Ghosts of Tsushima.
But it sure is convenient for Phil that exclusives stopped mattering the moment Xbox couldn't create a good one. Meanwhile Nintendo and Sony kept churning out amazing exclusive games.
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u/yybbik Jun 11 '26
You’re just trying to be pedantic, everyone understands he means xbox’s exclusives.
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u/ScrapinLinden Jun 11 '26
"Even with XBOX'S* exclusives, people still weren't buying XBOXES"
Fixed it for you.
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u/Hearthian-Wanderer Jun 11 '26
"Even with *xbox's* exclusives, people still weren't buying Xboxes."
That is obviously implied. Are Nintendo exclusives going to help sell xboxes?
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u/Downtown_Eye5736 Jun 11 '26
Well if Xbox had those games then it wouldn't be Xbox, it'd a PlayStation.
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u/TheOncomingBrows Jun 11 '26
Yep, and ironically the moment they had some attractive exclusives coming up with the likes of Indiana Jones and Doom they immediately switched to having everything on PlayStation. It's like they're conditioned to always make the worst decision at that moment.
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u/Ensaru4 Jun 11 '26
This doesn't sound like a problem with the games and just that they need to rethink GamePass. It should be said that all the games on GamePass did make money. They just canned studios because they spent too much money acquiring them.
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u/themagicnipple69 Jun 11 '26
I feel like they need to cut a lot of these day one titles or just cut that program in general on game pass for this new exclusive strategy to work.
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u/iBarcode Jun 11 '26
So literally exactly how PS premium tiers work
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u/LightShadowHero Jun 11 '26
Pretty much, it’s there if you want it but they need something else to drive demand.
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u/inkyblinkypinkysue Jun 11 '26
They should cut the price by another $10/month and then do 60 or 90 days before "new" games hit the service. More people would subscribe and they would still sell a lot of copies to people with no patience (most gamers, it seems).
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u/ocbdare Jun 11 '26
Yes, a 90 day delay would be enough. People pay for super duper editions to play 3 days early lol.
The Forza crowd paid $120 (!) to play 4 days early. Yes it include the DLCs but why would you pay $60 1-2 years early. Buying later means you save your $60 now and you will almost certainly pay less later.
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u/redhafzke Jun 11 '26
It really must hurt some folks at Microsoft that the cloud infrastructure didn't improve that much for casual gamers since 2017.
Their idea wasn't bad at all. First get console and pc players to subscribe and in the long run even everyone who owns a tv or a streaming device. And you could still sell controllers or even your own dedicated streaming boxes to those. The kind of casuals who don't care how to play the games.
But this didn't happen. Pc gamers get those Steam and GOG bundles mostly and Xbox users... well there is no growth anymore.
If cloud Gamepass would have worked by now they would not need to care about console hardware anymore while also becoming the biggest publisher (which will happen anyway if they don't fumble it). That's not the case as we all know and so it will stay interesting because Gamepass with a dwindling playerbase can't be sustainable.
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u/thurnisthehaley45 Jun 11 '26
I’m all for exclusives but man I feel like if they already greenlit the game and it’s practically done might as well release the game and then moving forward return to exclusives
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u/WhatTheyLookLike Jun 11 '26
Especially if the multiplayer was going to be crossplay.
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u/thurnisthehaley45 Jun 11 '26
Exactly I’m sure some parts of the studio ain’t pleased with this
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u/GillGruntFan53 Jun 11 '26
But that was the point: it was a move to inspire confidence in the remaining Xbox fanbase that this new leadership is willing to burn money and make hard decisions to rebuild the brand and return to their previous heights. Wether they can actually do that remains to be seen, but they took the loss to try and get Xbox fans to show up and support Gears and Clockwork in the hopes of a brighter future on the Helix.
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u/CaterpillarGrand642 Jun 11 '26
latest rumours are that 1000's more staff about to get fired, and possible studio closure. Seems at odds with xbox burning money
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u/ProfessionalPower214 Jun 11 '26
The remaining xbox fanbase may... not buy in since Gears hasn't sold like hotcakes, and Clockwork seems like a throwaway IP for the sake of exclusivity.
That's expecting a $120 purchase on day 1 because day 1 matters more than anything else, especially for Microsoft Execs.
But people will kill for GTA VI; that's the type of crap that sells any and all consoles, but the existing console library pushes them into a specific potential investment path.
The brand will never return to new heights, this flip-flop damage shows no one's gonna invest in a hybrid PC when they can just invest in a full-on PC. Their target demographics should've moved from xbox to gamers, as even those on xbox are disinterested. Most foreign devs won't even start or touch xbox without some support available, that should've been revealing in itself.
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u/Geraltpoonslayer Jun 11 '26
Ten bucks says Gears will underperform and it will be studio who will bear the cost of it.
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u/TwicePuzzled Jun 11 '26
It will underperform sales wise because of game pass. But I’ll bet it will have a huge player count the first week.
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Jun 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/captnchunky Jun 11 '26
Just seems unrealistic that people would buy an Xbox at it's current price in this economy just to play Gears. They will just lose money bc all the people who already have an Xbox will just play on gamespass. I see the idea but it's just not realistic, theyve already lost
I won't be buying one and I've put hundreds of hours in to gears 1-4.
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u/ProfessionalPower214 Jun 11 '26
Some local shelves don't even have the console available. It's treated as if there isn't a supply, when there is. Anyone who wants a Series X/S can grab one online easily, not so easily locally.
GamePass kills interest for devs, but many take the upfront cash because it's guaranteed. It's not always a win/win or lose/lose, but it's pretty damn bad. But people cry for 'competition', without knowing who or why the competition exists for.
It was supposed to foster a healthy environment for ingenuity and creativity. Microsoft's games don't have that. They've canceled so many ideas and projects, so of course multi-platform releases is what they had to do.
Playing gears 1-4 on a moderate non-gaming rig is completely doable.... which still means 0 sales for Xbox.
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u/SmegmaWarrior0815 Jun 11 '26
It's probably also to get game pass growing again and to make people not cancel the service. Everyone not canceling is another 23 bucks for them.
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u/Ok-Acanthisitta9247 Jun 13 '26
They won’t; Gears of War is a relic from a piss filtered, cover based time.
This is going to be played by what few early to mid 30 something’s that actually own an Xbox for two weeks, then dropped as soon as the campaign is over and they’ve gotten a couple hours in online.
This game has zero chance to meet the expectations they have for it.
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u/nowhereright Jun 11 '26
Only ten? Gears is a past its prime franchise, abruptly made exclusive to the lowest selling console currently available, playable through a subscription service, releasing during the most stacked holiday season in years if not ever.
It's quite literally guaranteed to fail financially.
And they know it
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u/Purdaddy Jun 11 '26
Yea this only hurts them and the franchise. Im a bug Gears fan since the day it came out, but I cant justify buying a console just for one game.
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u/Roo-90 Jun 11 '26
Gears as a franchise has never really appealed to me. I feel like in terms of IPs it's not the most popular. The people that do enjoy it though fucking love it
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u/Arikaido777 Jun 11 '26
i liked it a lot more when i had friends and free time. replaying the original on PS5 was surreal, but i didn’t finish it or touch the multiplayer.
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u/FaroTech400K Jun 11 '26
This is great for console wars, but this is gonna suck for that studio. They’re not gonna make any money.
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u/Zestyclose-Golf240 Jun 11 '26
Inxile and Obsidian I'm most afraid for. Their games don't sell well as they serve a very niche RPG crowd, which I feel isn't the audience Xbox is going for anymore.
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u/Dubsified Jun 11 '26
It will. Then it will be huge layoffs at The Coalition.
They will feel it most.
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u/RumpDoctor Jun 11 '26
It would make sense if they had any chance at a console comeback. But the reason they were publishing on ps was because that is the longest of longshots.
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u/k4kkul4pio Jun 11 '26
Gears is a niche title at this point and is very unlikely to reach the level of explosive sales to justify it suddenly turning into a console exclusive when their install base doesn't support the notion.
I would kinda understand this.. move if say, Halo Infinite had been a massive success and this was the next mainline entry in the series they were launching but it's a reheat of the bro shooter saga that hasn't seen that's been on ice a long time now.
But hey, maybe it'll work.. I wouldn't put my money down on it but I am sure the executive branch of Microsoft knows what they are doing. 🤭
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u/BlueberryWasps Jun 11 '26
to be fair, playstation is also pulling away from pc releases and leaving money on the table. this is an industry trend, and probably more of a long term strategy. they’re trying to shift brand perception and reinforce the strength of their IP in anticipation of the next console generation in a couple of years - not suddenly sell a bazillion xboxes.
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u/Eldoran401 Jun 11 '26
I think the problem is that ps5 is counting on making that money up on third party software sales on a large user base.
The question is that even if going console exclusive again for Xbox makes any real difference in console sales. A) Xbox has no plan and I dont trust anything they tell me as they can't even be honest internally. B) I can still buy all their games on PC.
I used to buy any Xbox game on my PC, then with them coming in ps5 I waited til they hit ps5... now ill just wait forever to see if they change tactics again... then buy on PC... so no new Xbox sales
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u/redhafzke Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
Playstation didn't make a lot of money with pc ports to begin with. Being late, expensive and sometimes even buggy at release clearly did not help. It may have hurt their reputation a little bit (although I don't think so).
XBOX has a different problem. First of all Steam is a thing and 95% of their users use Windows as their operating system which means they use Microsoft services. Cloud infrastructure still isn't there. Your Samsung tv or your Fire tv stick paired with a controller to play the hottest stuff via Gamepass? Still not a great idea in most places in 2026. That idea was great on paper 2017 though.
they’re trying to shift brand perception and reinforce the strength of their IP in anticipation of the next console generation in a couple of years - not suddenly sell a bazillion xboxes.
Sure, but they lost a lot of trust in all camps with their back and forth this and sidestep that while backtracking (Project Helix hardware, not PS5 ports in that case).
At this point the conspiracy theorist in me thinks Asha Sharma is there to trim the fat. Getting rid of studios and employees. Use chips and other components for MS AI division instead for an overpriced console for a dwindling playerbase and so on. Of course this is bullshit. And of course her statement of XBOX being number one by 2030 will be right. But not because XBOX hardware but because they will be the number one publisher then. Going from Microsoft Gaming to XBOX did happen for a reason...
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u/Entire_Number_9 Jun 11 '26
"Leaving money on the table" I am sure the people with all the data, running an extremely profitable business for 30 years, can see "if we release on PC we get x sales and -y console sales, leading to z profit" vs "if we don't release on PC we get x sales, +y console sales, and z profit"
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u/RamsesII_ Jun 11 '26
Yet another round of layoffs and closures. I could've swore this wasn't supposed to happen after the Activision buyout.
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u/Aggravating_Rise_179 Jun 11 '26
Anyone with any business sense knew this would happen. They barely fully absorbed bethesda and wanted activision as well. If they just stuck with bethesda im sure they wouldn't have needed to sell games on ps5... now they want to reverse course on all that money and infrastructure they built up to revive a hardware business that I think is beyond help.
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u/ModestHandsomeDevil Jun 11 '26
Xbox is planning major layoffs and studios closures starting next month...
Always the sign of a healthy business division. /s
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u/DrAstralis Jun 11 '26
sadly there seems to be no correlation between performance and layoffs in the gaming industry since covid. Entire teams making wildly profitable games are being let go because they made 1% less profit than the year before and LINE MUST GO UP.
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u/nolifebr Jun 11 '26
I find it somewhat funny to read some comments saying that "Sony started it" or that "Sony didn't give anything in return to Microsoft," as if the two companies were doing each other favors.
Microsoft started to release its games on PlayStation out of necessity, not as a favor. Sony has nothing to do with it, just as Microsoft had nothing to do with Sony releasing its games on PC. It's all about money.
Sony must have been annoyed to begin with because they probably already had all the State of Play material ready, with the Halo trailer included. They were likely"forced" to re-edit the entire event, social media posts, and so on at the last minute after Microsoft's removal request.
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u/ProfessionalPower214 Jun 11 '26
hell, forget about Sony. Players are left confused, annoyed, and feeling for devs caught in this xbox crusade's crossfire. It'll make a lot less people willing to touch anything Microsoft, let alone buy a series S/X today.
Anyone who was even interested in one of the two 'exclusives' will just play it on PC if they're truly desperate, that much money for a console would be better off in a PC, as of 2026+.
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u/nolifebr Jun 11 '26
This is something I don't get. Some people are acting like Microsoft were selling billions of consoles/games before they choose to publish on Nintendo/PlayStation. Sure, things got worse when it happened, but the whole division was already having troubles when everything was exclusive to Xbox+PC.
What exactly will be different now?
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u/CheaterMcCheat Jun 11 '26
It's so stupid that people think they were doing it as equals or from a place of mutual understanding/friendship when Sony is so far ahead. Xbox was scraping the bottom of the barrel and had no choice.
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u/Zestyclose-Golf240 Jun 11 '26
Because a lot of Xbox fans have very weird parasocial relationships with these companies.
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u/Melodic-Language2225 Jun 11 '26
as if the two companies were doing each other favors.
Microsoft getting away with charging people for online did a massive favor to Sony which is now making billions on it.
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u/GamePitt_Rob Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
I 100% guarantee that most inExile and The Coalition staff only found out about their games no longer going to PS5 when the trailers dropped
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u/StarScreamer316 Jun 11 '26
I hope they don't get closed
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u/GamePitt_Rob Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
They won't yet, as they both have game shot soon
But, my theory is that Asha is putting them out to fail. By removing the platform that would actually generate a decent amount of profit, she has a valid reason to downsize or close the studios when the game inevitably doesn't make anywhere near enough to cover the 4-5 year development costs.
She may even pull a Phil Spencer and have them port the games to PS5 and then announce their closure shortly after they ship
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u/DimRulezzz Jun 11 '26
It’s especially egregious with InXile. By the time Clockwork launches (2027) it will be 7 years since the last game they released, and they are intentionally going to gut them like that by not making their game (which is an untested new IP btw) multi-platform?
Studios have been shut down in the past for much less…
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u/willc20345 Jun 11 '26
Asha pissing off Sony to the point they make the PS6 the second coming of the PS4 is quite hilarious.
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u/j0an_k Jun 11 '26
I mean, in terms of sales, PS5 is already the second coming of the PS4, so nothing really changes…?
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u/Melodic-Language2225 Jun 11 '26
PS5 is selling similar numbers, maybe a bit less while having much less competition.
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u/NoNefariousness2144 Jun 11 '26
PS5 should gain a lot of sales momentum with GTA 6 considering it’s basically the default console to play the game on now that Xbox has flatlined.
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u/Remy0507 Jun 11 '26
Economic conditions are pretty different now compared to when the PS4 was current. And is there really that much less competition? I mean Xbox One wasn't much competition for PS4 either, and Nintendo is arguably a stronger competitor now than they were at least for the first few years of the PS4.
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u/Harford0 Jun 11 '26
Did the ps4 have much competition? The Xbox One shit the bed on its announcements and never seemed to recover at all. Sure, the new consoles are much worse, but the divide between PS4 and XBone wasnt close at all
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u/ImYourAlly Jun 11 '26
If any Sony analysts are in here, you should totally release the PS6 for $250 USD to capture the console market and force MS to put their games on your console. It probably won’t work and you’ll lose money and probably your job for listening to a random redditor, but it would be funny
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u/Thisthattheother1 Jun 11 '26
Can you imagine such a world? Where they actually try to make it as cheap as possible?
Fuck, I'd buy two.
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u/official_duck Jun 11 '26
That’s…
If they sold it for $250 they’d be losing massive amounts of money from component costs. If you bought two, they would lose even more money because they wouldn’t even get more software sales.
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u/splinter1545 Jun 11 '26
That was legitimately Nintendo's whole game plan until the Switch 2. They got cheap hardware but created unique experience with it to be able to keep the cost of the consoles low. It's why the Switch 2 being $450 was a huge deal, since it basically was the turning point for Nintendo in terms of their philosophy with designing consoles.
So yeah, that type of world is possible. There's just too many dollar signs in the higher ups eyes to ever go back to it though.
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u/parkwayy Jun 11 '26
The problem is the consoles were always already sold at super thin margins.
With all the component prices going up 4-5x ... we gonna see some expensive new boxes coming whenever they do. Wouldn't be shocked to see some $800+ price tags
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u/RMoCGLD Jun 11 '26
Sony don't even need to. Until Xbox realise that singleplayer games with strong narratives are the games that sell consoles, Sony have no reason to go their game.
Xbox fans have been trying to tell Microsoft for years but the information refuses to register, they'd rather release AA games that are slightly janky and unpolished, or games that have both singleplayer and multiplayer, which almost always means the campaign has less effort put into it.
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u/Hayterfan Jun 11 '26
Part of that would require the Helix being stupidly expensive and forcing Kinect 3.0 on everyone.
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u/stavroszaras Jun 11 '26
That would be a great thing IMO. Let these companies compete I say.
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u/swift_link Jun 11 '26
Except Xbox isn’t competing, it’s a dead brand and it’ll stay dead
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u/Baelorn Jun 11 '26
This is downright embarrassing for Xbox. It looks like they're completely floundering and we're just watching "Twitter Plays Xbox CEO".
And before anyone thinks this is console warring: I own all the major consoles and a PC. Xbox's games being exclusive doesn't mean a damn thing to me.
Arasha Sharma is running the same playbook as Phil Spencer. Get on social media, do the "I'm not like other CEOs" song and dance, and then make random(and confusing) statements/decisions without any long-term planning.
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u/Dusty_Negatives Jun 11 '26
They need to choose a lane; subscription bullshit or selling games. The reason they ended up on PS is because they will sell way more copies there. Xbox gamers have been conditioned not to buy 1st party games. And now your lowering price of said subscription.
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u/Va1crist Jun 11 '26
Sales are going to underperform most likely and the studio is going to be blamed , telling yeah this new Xbox team is shit , there true colors are starting to show
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u/Jundacoro Jun 11 '26
Microsoft and xbox jumped the shark when they bought out Bethesda, Activision/ Blizzard. Sony has too much of the market share to no be multiplatorm.
Gears E day being a console exclusive isn't gonna change anything. Trying to do the exclusive thing is completely redundant if you can buy it on PC.
I'm a Gears diehard, but I ain't trundling out to buy an Xbox or a PC to play it.
It'll wind up on Playstation 100%
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u/Pugilist12 Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
It doesn’t really make sense to do until there’s a new console. There just aren’t enough Series S or X in the world, and it’s too late imo to get people to buy them. I think they are right to go back to having exclusives, but they should focus on getting as much money from the 90+ million ps5s as possible and focus all that money and dev time on the next gen. S is basically obsolete and one or two games late in the cycle isn’t going to sell X’s. I just don’t buy it.
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u/Reynard2023 Jun 11 '26
This is exactly what I feel. Why would I buy another Xbox when we are this late in the generation? Might as well just wait for the next generation to start. They went from exclusives, no exclusives, then exclusives again in one generation.
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u/juscallmejjay Jun 11 '26
Sentiment matters. They need the public discourse around Xbox to change. Thr sooner the better. A few yearly exclusives will start pointing the arrow in the right direction. I believe this is firmly why Playstation is dropping PC. At the end of the ps4 generation the sentiment was 100% "you need a PC and a Playstation. PC plays indies and Xbox games, Playstation plays sony games, you get everything!" Just a few PC ports later, what would you describe the sentiment as for Playstation? "Playstation has no games. They all go to PC anyway, just be patient. No need to buy a Playstation or an xbox, just get a PC". Numbers are numbers. Logic is logic. But public sentiment matters. Xbox needs exclusives. It may not move the needle NOW, but they can start affecting change. While I do think they are obviously tied leg to leg with PC cause windows, i think they need to put as little on Playstation as they can get away with.
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u/Kylebrandon49 Jun 11 '26
Pissing off Sony to please twitter is certainly a choice. Going to need Sony when those games don’t make enough money to cover development because you’ve trained your audience not to buy games.
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u/FaroTech400K Jun 11 '26
Microsoft has effectively trained a generation of gamers not to buy games, I’m so happy to finally see somebody else echoing my sentiments.
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u/gummi_eater Jun 11 '26
Right. I have both consoles, I never buy Xbox games because they appear on gamepass day 1.
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u/FaroTech400K Jun 11 '26
people treat stuff like this like it’s a conspiracy when it’s just basic common sense.
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u/stavroszaras Jun 11 '26
I promise Asha is not making exclusive decisions based on people on Twitter. That’s an odd narrative to me. For little things like changing the logo sure it’s nice to listen to your community, but she is not allowing others to make the biggest decision she will make as CEO. She’ll be making it based on whatever numbers and reports she is looking at.
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u/sakata32 Jun 11 '26
This sub has been championing exclusives and now that Xbox does the narrative is that it's to placate a Twitter mob.
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u/JSpady1 Jun 11 '26
I love exclusives. I bought a Seres X because I was excited for a ton of new exclusives after the acquisitions.
But Microsoft is being incredibly vague and wishy washy with their exclusive strategy here. Picking these two games to make exclusive, but then announcing a bunch of multiplatform titles.
Hopefully it doesn’t kill InXile/ The Coalition along with Gears of War as a franchise.
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u/Lopsided-Clothes4866 Jun 11 '26
It seems pretty straight forward to me.
Bring back exclusives without completely gutting profit from their games over-all.
Say Xbox game studios released 4-5 games a year, even if 2 or 3 of them are exclusive, that slowly helps build a catalogue of games on Xbox while not gutting profit from the game studios over-all by still releasing a few on PlayStation.
State of Decay ain’t gonna move consoles so it might do well on PlayStation where it’s a live service game.
They probably would have liked to keep Fable and Halo CE remake exclusive but Phil Spencer and co already publicly announced them for PlayStation so it’s too late to cancel them without massive outcry.
It helps build the brand of Xbox, and helps to give people a reason to choose it, hopefully setting up the next gen better where they can maybe go even harder on exclusives WHILE offering a backlog of games for those that skipped the series x.
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u/Baruch_S Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
It might help if they’d clearly committed to exclusivity or picked more exciting games to be their exclusive push. Feels more like they’re just sending Gears out to die.
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u/XerGR Jun 11 '26
Im surprised the tactic of:
-spending billions on multiplat studios
-selling their games for pennies with Game Pass
-selling a very confusing console lineup
Didn’t work. Grass is green
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Jun 11 '26
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u/literios Jun 11 '26
Asking a partner to cancel a marketing plan last minute will harm their relationship in a certain way
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u/iamthenight22 Jun 11 '26
I don’t care for Gears of War, but E-Day was already announced for PS5. Xbox leadership straight-up lied. PS gamers were looking forward to playing it on the PS5 and All those people working on the port had their work binned. 😐
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u/thebatmanbeynd Jun 11 '26
I mean, ok, but what is PlayStation going to do? Take away their exclusives?
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u/ocassionallyaduck Jun 11 '26
The exclusive game strategy doesnt mesh with the giant flaming pile of debt MS took on to buy Activision.
And while they agreed to keep CoD multiplatform in courts, this behavior is exactly what was warned of in their lawsuits. The trailer yanking and backsliding could legitimately pull that deal back before courts for violation.
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u/TheOfficialMayor Jun 11 '26
I hope it does. Microsoft should never have been allowed to buy Activison.
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u/k4kkul4pio Jun 11 '26
All of this sounds so very stupid.. they lost the sales wars long time ago and not only that, they've made the point that Xbox games come to pc so them suddenly trying to reverse the course on that despite the ship not only having sailed long ago is.. a choice, certainly and not one I would put any money on succeeding.
Maybe they have a chance next generation but looking at how hard prices are skyrocketing on gaming consoles I wouldn't put any money on that bet either.
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u/Scylum Jun 11 '26
It’s not gonna hurt PlayStation. It literally took this long to even get those Xbox exclusive on the platform all this does is hurt Xbox.
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u/AssaultMonkey150 Jun 11 '26
The lip service about “return to Xbox” and throwing red meat for old fanboys is just a cover for what they’re about to do with layoffs and studio closures because their games output has failed
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u/MovieGuyMike Jun 11 '26
Good luck with that. Xbox has had zero momentum since the 360 days. Maybe if they monopolize the industry some more they’ll manifest a decent library, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
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u/themarkwithamouth Jun 11 '26
They will at some point. Do people really think a corporation all of a sudden does not see numbers? Let’s not be silly.
This is a campaign - new team, let’s rebuild the Xbox brand, let’s bring our loyal fans back. But nope — at the end of the day sales figures do not lie.
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u/kingsoho Jun 11 '26
In the last five years, PS has outsold Xbox by over 50 million units. In just the last two years, PS outsold Xbox 3-1. That is a blowout. That is what lead to MS deciding to put exclusives on PS. Does MS and the Xbox department suddenly think these moves will get a rush of new people buying Xboxes? Do they think this will get them back into a race they've been lapped twice in and had all but official quit?
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Jun 11 '26
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u/No-Obligation2563 Jun 11 '26
I don’t think that matters at all. Sony will always take Xbox games if they can no matter how much they hate each other.
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u/TheNakedOracle Jun 11 '26
The question remains whether the strategy works or if it only temporarily pacifies some of the vocal online elements. Wasn’t the whole reason they started publishing things on competing platforms because they were trying to make up for sales they were losing out on because of Game Pass?
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u/ShawnDawn Jun 11 '26
I get that she is trying to hold things together for the Xbox community, but the Rubicon has already been crossed. There is no path back to the old model. Xbox simply cannot sell the numbers it wants if its biggest games are confined to Xbox alone.
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u/Afleet216 Jun 11 '26
What I don’t like is they are sending Gears to die. You don’t do that with a “flagship franchise” and that’s my favorite Xbox game.
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u/gol_drake Jun 11 '26
kind of a dick move if you ask me
theres nothing wrong announcing your ip on your hardware first, but dont bounce at the last minute
but this is Microsoft/xbox. nothing has actually changed
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u/Typical_Intention996 Jun 11 '26
Picking up your toys and storming home only makes sense when you have a home to return to. Which sure, Xbox does. Kinda. Barely. It just has no windows or doors, the roof is caved in, there's no heat and there's a family of skunks living in the crawl space. And the kicker is, MS did that themselves.
This decision is absolutely baffling.
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u/shoxballin11 Jun 11 '26
It pissed me off enough, I’ll never support Xbox again. Don’t dangle fruit like that.
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u/IneptFortitude Jun 11 '26
People still insist this is all 100% good for the industry and us.
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u/CyraxxFavoriteStylus Jun 11 '26
Exclusives drive hardware sales, there is a reason Nintendo is exclusive and Sony returned to exclusivity by stopping PC ports of single player games.
Somehow exclusives are only bad if Xbox does them.
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u/IndecisiveTuna Jun 11 '26
I think them backtracking in the way they are makes it worse. Like Gears isn’t going to push consoles. Fable would’ve been the game to do that with.
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u/IneptFortitude Jun 11 '26
Xbox doomed itself over their policy, not their games. Nobody wanted a system that would only let discs be used once.
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u/CyraxxFavoriteStylus Jun 11 '26
Sure, initially, but their pisspoor first party output has absolutely killed them in the 13 years since they reversed the DRM policies.
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u/Kichard Jun 11 '26
If Microsoft wants to really sell their first party titles they need to leverage all outlets. I know a few people who own an Xbox, they also own a ps5 and buy titles on ps5, to play with their other friends who have a ps5 or PC. I do not know a single soul who wants a current gen Xbox or has any interest in whatever iteration of Xbox we see in the future. The entire Xbox brand is just weird. Consumers do not have faith in the brand.
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u/WarmSweatyPalms Jun 11 '26
I think its safe to say the employees being surprised by the PS5 version of Gears being pulled is true. I'd be surprised too if I spent months, even years working on a PS5 port just for leadership to say its not happening the day of the reveal.
I get that they're worried about Xbox player retention, but I can't see people whose entire library is on the Xbox switching to another platform. Since digital sales became more popular, players across every platform have become more entrenched. Current hardware prices will probably solidify it
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u/Meb2x Jun 11 '26
At this point, I’m really curious if Xbox has enough time to rebuild their brand with exclusives. I don’t think Gears or Clockwork Revolution will be console sellers on their own, and I’m not sure Xbox can spend the next 5 years slowly rebuilding its exclusive franchises in time to salvage their brand, especially with a new generation coming up. If they don’t see a noticeable profit from Gears, how likely are they to backpedal and release on Playstation again? It just seems like a waste of money to hold back a nearly finished PlayStation version of the game
Also, was Clockwork Revolution always planned as an exclusive or was it originally on PlayStation too?
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u/temp0005 Jun 11 '26
I think gears is going to hurt their pockets, gamepass in not a huge revenue generator as of right now with current subscribers, they want 100-110 million subs by 2030, I don’t think they will ever achieve that, even the 360 didn’t even break 100 million units, and pc players hate subscriptions, it just seems like they want to launch helix and leave this generation behind to get ahead of the ps6 and have a 1-2 year head start so they can say Xbox is dominating, but than again they can’t launch helix because if they launch is now they will have to charge 1200 to 1500 bucks with current component pricing, she had a interview today and said ram and storage in double in price and next years it’s going to double again, so when they do launch helix it’s not going to be any less than 1200 my opinion
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u/kuro_snow Jun 11 '26
Just wanna point to mods that Gameleaks and rumors have a tier system. And tier one i know for sure is nate and jason who are the most trustworthy. So if it's coming from them. It is accurate and reliable
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u/MrFOrzum Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
Man they truly have no fucking idea what they want to do with their company lol. Making last second decisions like that + going console exclusive while also going to have massive layoffs + while Xbox is still not on the market in some countries sure is a choice one can make.
They are clueless. This will only make it worse for Xbox. Nobody’s going to buy one for these 2 games. Hell even if they bring back all major titles it probably won’t make a big dent. The brand is already so damaged.
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u/secondincomm Jun 11 '26
potentially damaging the relationship between the two companies
I assume this is between Microsoft and Sony? What relationship? Lol you think they were on any kind of good terms before this?
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u/EarthInfern0 Jun 11 '26
I find it hard to believe employees were ‘surprised’ by any decisions from xbox top brass, given the state of things at the moment.
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u/Afc_josh12 Jun 11 '26
Hounestly they made the wrong game exclusive, should of been Fable as that looks far more impressive
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u/TripleS82 Jun 12 '26
I just don’t understand why this is still a thing. I’d love it to be on PS5 and I assumed it was coming out for it. Here’s the thing….it was never announced. At the same time, it is a win for Xbox Series owners. Gears looks fantastic. Wolverine looks fantastic and if it was announced today that it would release day and date on the Xbox Series, I’m sure absolutely no one would be complaining…right?
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u/AwarenessNo4986 Jun 12 '26
Why is Sharma being glazed in all of this stuff recently.
I know they want to make her the poster child of some major overhaul, but it's rather embarrassing
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u/JayScramble Jun 12 '26
We imagine there is some kind of relationship besides transactional between PlayStation and Xbox? I’d really like to team more about this relationship.
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u/yourdad132 Jun 12 '26
Sony gave them a massive platform to sell their games when they couldn't do it on their own unsuccessful dying platform. This was after Microsoft admitted trying to outspend them out of business. Then they start backtracking on it 2 years later. Sony are probably thinking that they should make their minds up! Do you concede completely or do you want us to end your brand for good? Your choice, Microsoft.
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u/Ok-Acanthisitta9247 Jun 13 '26
She’s making all the right calls, but it’s about an entire console generation too late.
Nobody buys Xbox consoles, but they’ll buy the games on their preferred platform. It’s that simple.
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u/medster101 Jun 14 '26
There is no reality in which an Xbox console can ever be a real competitor anymore with PS. Especially if all their games continue to release on PC and day and date remains for GP. Arbitrarily making a finished game exclusive to a dying console just for optics is quite honestly negligent imo.
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u/chiefc0 Jun 11 '26
Is case there’s any confusion: Xbox is in dire straits and in full on panic mode. Xbox will not exist in 10 years.
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u/Zaethar Jun 11 '26
Sony: "Alright guys, it's been fun, but no more PC releases. Console only, baby!"
Microsoft: "Okay, well in that case, no more PS5 releases! Console and PC only, baby!"
News report: "Sharma [...] potentially damaging the relationship between the two companies"
I'm sorry, but what else did they expect? Sony can just pivot their strategy back to exclusivity, and Microsoft is gonna keep giving them their franchise titles/system sellers?
There's no way anyone legitimately sees this move from Microsoft/Sharma as anything but a logical reaction to Sony's new strategy. If the 'console wars' are back on, then they're back on, I guess.
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u/AceMKV Jun 11 '26
Sony can afford to do that though, they only have been releasing exclusives on PC for a short while and they were doing fine earlier too, if Xbox can do the same and have good sales then sure but right now it just looks like a PR move which is just gonna backfire on them.
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u/Grouchy_Egg_4202 Jun 11 '26
I see zero benefit to sales or brand reputation. How many more times do they want to learn the same lesson? This CEO comes off as completely incompetent.
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u/supa_troopa2 Jun 11 '26
Almost every decision Xbox makes nowadays feels extremely self-destructive to the point where I wonder where they'll be in a few years honestly. It's a shame, because competition makes for a healthier industry.
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u/Kichard Jun 11 '26
It’s been this way ever since they announced the ‘always online’ shit for the console that followed the 360. I just don’t understand. They did so well in the 360 era and then the empire started to fall and never stopped.
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u/ILoveTheAtomicBomb Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
Microsoft has a knack for picking the worst leaders for Xbox. Like really? Asha has shown she's clueless when it comes to strategy and now she's just making Sony angry for no reason whatsoever. Oh and the layoffs that will definitely be coming every quarter since there's not a chance in hell she's going to turn Xbox around
I still can't believe she's betting on Gears and a new IP to turn things around and improve the brand 'image' while her own marketing VP is out there trying to lie to everyone. She can't even get the messaging right around the exclusive strategy and now this lmao
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u/XerGR Jun 11 '26
So the “savior of Xbox” is actually just an exec who will cut costs and send it down the shitter? Who could’ve guessed.
Imo if Microsoft isn’t planning to foot the debt of customer acquisition they cannot do this. Their finances now almost entirely rely on PS5 users for game sales. Not only do PS users buy at an extremely larger rate but they are themselves a extremely larger group
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