Xbox finds itself once again in an awkward PR situation, this time regarding the console exclusivity of The Coalition's Gears of War: E-Day.
As you'll recall, Jeff Grubb shared the news ahead of the Xbox Games Showcase, confirming that the decision to remove the PS5 version had been "just made". The Verge's Tom Warren backed it up, but Xbox's VP of Games Marketing Aaron Greenberg tried disputing that info in a series of tweets:
Hey Tom, I can confirm this is not true. We just limited the knowledge of this news to a very small internal group. Intention was to share this news first with our players and everyone watching showcase.
When asked by Warren about the timing of the decision, Greenberg replied:
A lot has changed since Asha came into role 107 days ago. We are moving fast and it’s frankly pretty energizing inside the hallways here. I was made aware of these exclusives roughly a month in advance. Hope that helps!
The problem is, the latest episode of the official Xbox Podcast went up yesterday, and it was centered on the Gears of War: E-Day deep dive that followed the Xbox Showcase. When they showed the trailer again, the PS5 logo was there.
Microsoft has subsequently removed the podcast and reuploaded it without that PS5 logo, but it was far too late, and now everyone is convinced the insiders are right. Greenberg has a point in saying that new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has come in like a whirlwind, making sweeping decisions like cutting the Game Pass price (after the 50% bump massively crippled the subscriber base) and now the choice to refocus on exclusives, albeit on a case-by-case basis and for single player games only, with multiplayer games poised to be released on multiple platforms.
However, it seems like a month's notice should have been plenty of time to remove that PS5 logo from the trailer. Anyway, Gears of War: E-Day launches on October 6 on PC and Xbox Series S|X.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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