Rumors that Xbox might be backing away from its exclusivity commitments surfaced yesterday, with insiders on the NeoGaf forums stating as much. However, Matthew Ball, the CSO of Xbox, has stated that exclusives will remain.
These rumors are false. Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will stay exclusive. There are no conversations and have been no conversations to "reverse course." And as we said last week, players can continue to expect signature exclusives from us every year.
The original report discusses Microsoft subsidising Xbox for the last 25 years of the brand’s history.
It has had years of profitability, but for most of those years it needed help, and otherwise would have gone under. The report also discusses that layoffs were inevitable, predating Sharma entering the fold. That’s why the exclusivity return might have been “fan service” as stated by the leaker, and reversing course is allegedly already underway.
The same leaker, known as SneakerSO, also helped paint the picture with other historically accurate leaks. He claimed the Zenimax Blackbird MMO was getting shut down, and it did. However, this has yet to be confirmed by other reporters or leakers, and sits largely by itself.
With the Chief Strategy Officer publicly responding to Jez Corden on X, it likely seals the deal that there is no reversal of exclusivity on Gears E-Day, Clockwork Revolution or other Xbox titles coming along.
The real story is that fans can’t trust Xbox at the moment
Regardless of the exclusivity myths and rumors, the real issue seems to be that after rebuilding trust in 100 days of Sharma’s reign, it evaporated overnight. It’s alleged that three studios are likely closing down, which we covered this morning as the news broke last night in the States.
The shocking thing is that Ninja Theory just announced a game at Xbox Direct, revealing a more action-oriented Senua game, its third in the series. Seeing that game just get an announcement and then seemingly be about to die in the same month sends a heavy amount of mixed signals to the Xbox fanbase.
Importantly, why should fans trust anything Xbox says now, given the mixed messaging and chaos coming from it? Especially with Xbox talking about it being a federation of studios bring each other out and where sparks can turn into something. Only for them to be on the verge of closing those spark studios?
just a few months ago, Xbox chief content officer Matt Booty was pointing to Double Fine and Compulsion Games as examples of studios it's committed to, "where little sparks can grow into something big." pic.twitter.com/5nwJAE8bEf
Craig Robinson is an experienced gaming and esports writer with nearly a decade of coverage experience since 2015. With a background in software engineering, he combines his journalistic expertise with a strong understanding of technical SEO and web development fundamentals. He’s passionate about covering MMO games, competitive esports, and crafting guides that help players get the most out of their favorite titles.
He's been writing about gaming and esports for over 10 years, which started as for fun project during university. He has since developed his skill set, contributing to newsrooms coverage of key games and event, and blending evergreen content strategy and a solid grasp of content marketing fundamentals. His work has appeared in Esports News UK, Gamer Guides, theEscpaist, and VideoGamer, and he now contributes to Gamehub's review team. When he’s not writing, Craig can usually be found running, at the gym, or tinkering with coding projects to keep his GitHub active.
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