Gears of War: E-Day reportedly cost Xbox over $500 million, before marketing

A new report claims Gears of War: E-Day cost Xbox more than $500 million to make, and that’s before a dollar of marketing. Kotaku says the figure comes from one unnamed source familiar with Xbox’s business, and Microsoft didn’t respond to its request for comment. The game launched on 6 October for Xbox Series X|S and PC, so the number lands barely two weeks after release, with first-week sales estimates already looking thin.

A figure that keeps moving

The budget rumours started in June, after the game appeared at Xbox’s summer showcase. Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson said then that he’d heard the cost was “insane” and above $400 million, a claim we covered at the time. Windows Central’s Jez Corden pushed back, arguing on the Xbox Two podcast that The Coalition’s costs can’t be pinned on one game. In his telling, the Vancouver studio also builds dev tools, works on Unreal Engine and contributes to projects such as Forza and Fable, so some of that money is spread across Xbox’s wider portfolio, as Pure Xbox summarises.

Kotaku’s source says the real number is higher still. That would put E-Day well above other console exclusives of this generation. Forbes writer Paul Tassi points out that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, released in 2023, cost around $315 million according to files leaked in the Insomniac hack. He calls $500 million plausible given three years of rising costs and the scale of a Gears game. Forbes also notes development began around 2020 at a studio of roughly 300 people.

Pure Xbox is more sceptical, saying it’s inclined to believe Corden’s point about the budget being spread across more than one game. Nobody outside Microsoft can settle it, and an official figure looks unlikely.

The sales picture

The sales estimates don’t help. Alinea Analytics puts first-week sales at 230,000 copies and revenue at $37 million, a figure Kotaku says includes a big chunk from Game Pass subscribers who paid $30 for the Premium Edition Upgrade to unlock early access. That’s roughly 7% of the reported budget, though Kotaku notes the numbers will have risen in the two weeks since launch. Our own write-up of those estimates, E-Day’s 230K copies and the Game Pass effect, has the detail. Kotaku adds that the game is estimated to have sold fewer than 100,000 copies on Steam so far, and that Microsoft hasn’t shared player numbers, unlike the 3 million-plus launch players it announced for Gears 5 in 2019.

Would PS5 have saved it?

Kotaku’s argument is that it wouldn’t. Alinea estimated earlier this year that Gears of War: Reloaded, the first Gears game on PlayStation, sold 684,000 copies on PS5. Kotaku calculates that matching that on E-Day would add roughly $33 million after Sony’s platform fees. The outlet notes E-Day is a $70 game while Reloaded was $40, so a new entry might do better, but it says the maths still doesn’t approach $500 million. Its source believes the game was unlikely to recoup its costs on any combination of platforms. As a console exclusive, though, it could help rebuild activity on Xbox in key areas.

That fits the direction Xbox has taken. The studio has confirmed E-Day isn’t coming to PS5 at launch, and Kotaku notes Xbox has told players to “expect signature exclusives from us every year”. It also points to a leaked Xbox Insider survey, detailed by Windows Central, that asked console owners how they’d react if all Xbox franchises except Call of Duty went exclusive. Forza Horizon 6‘s PS5 version has also slipped to January 2027.

The cost figure arrives while Xbox is under financial pressure elsewhere. We’ve already reported on Xbox’s reported layoffs and budget cuts, and a $500 million game that critics rate highly but that sells modestly will feed that debate. Until Microsoft says otherwise, treat the $400 million and $500 million figures as unconfirmed.