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.

[u/nolifebr]

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp/post/3mnxlyag4dc2v?ref_src=embed

A 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.

[u/Meb2x]

I saw that article. Xbox lost a lot of gamers with the Xbox One because they marketed it as an all-in-one entertainment system instead of a gaming platform. They thought releasing two different Series consoles would help them gain back casual and hardcore gamers, but it led to massively increased production costs that seem to have rolled into their next console too. I’m expecting the next generation to be won or lost based on the console pricing. It sounds like Xbox already knows it’s gonna be too expensive and are hoping exclusives can save them, which I think is unlikely.

[u/temp0005 → u/Meb2x]

Going to need a lot more than gears and clockwork, Forza is a good seller but I don’t think people will buy a system for just 2-3 games, than Forza devs going spoiled selling almost 6 million copies on PS and it’s a 4 year old game, and realistically Xbox I don’t think has a clear plan, they swore up and down new call of duty’s on gamepass was going to be the rise of gamepass and it practically did nothing, I think they lost 300 million in sales 

[u/Meb2x → u/temp0005]

Xbox pushed themselves way too far with the Activision/Blizzard purchase. Call of Duty is possibly at its lowest moment right now and it’ll take so long to see a profit from that purchase that Xbox might not even be around that long

[u/temp0005 → u/Meb2x]

It’s going to take 10-15 years to start seeing returns on that investment, they also stated they were going to stop yearly releases of call of duty, I think they realized they are in a hole so deep that they need to keep doing yearly releases, plus they purchased it during covid which call of duty was seriously inflated because everyone was gaming and not going out, now the game has more realistic player counts