Xbox kicked off its Xbox Games Showcase 2026 with Gears of War: E-Day, to help tee up the specialized direct event the game would have after the showcase by revealing its October 6, 2026, release date and the fact that it would be an Xbox console exclusive, as was rumoured hours before the showcase.
After seeing every major Xbox franchise make its way to PlayStation and in some cases, Nintendo, E-Day marks the return of Xbox console exclusives, though it's not entirely certain how far this new approach to exclusives stretches. We just saw Forza Horizon 6 arrive on PS5 alongside Xbox, and it would be fairly surprising if we didn't see Forza Horizon 7 do the same.
Now this puts several future titles we all thought would definitely be multi-platform releases from first-party Xbox Game Studios games back into question. Is Elder Scrolls VI now just an Xbox console exclusive? Is Fallout 5? What about the Marvel's Blade game that Arkane is making?
The big thing to remember is that prior to Xbox's new chief executive officer Asha Sharma coming in and making the decision to make E-Day an Xbox exclusive, the game was fully coming to PlayStation. It was rated for PS5 by PEGI, so now whatever previous confirmations about games being multiplatform we've had seem to be out the window.
Whatever the case, it'll be interesting to see Xbox navigate this new path. There's a lot of emphasis on 'the return of Xbox' from Sharma and her new regime, but selling Xbox consoles is undoubtedly part of what makes that effort work financially, something that Xbox has not been able to do recently.
Exclusive titles are a start, but trying it with some franchises and potentially not with others will really test just how much players love games from the first-party suite of studios under the Xbox umbrella. Will some players stick with their PS5 if they can still get Forza Horizon on it, for example? Will Gears or Halo being console exclusives going forward be enough to get people to buy a six-year-old console that's only gotten more expensive? We'll see.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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