Xbox’s decision to make Gears of War: E-Day an exclusive hasn’t moved its hardware numbers, according to Circana analyst Mat Piscatella. Speaking to The Game Business, as reported by GamingBolt, Piscatella said the trend has gone the other way. “Saying Gears is going to be exclusive hasn’t made any difference in terms of the hardware trend. In fact, it keeps getting worse.”
His point of comparison is Sony’s Marvel’s Wolverine, which he says shows what an exclusive can still do for a platform. The Wolverine DualSense was the bestselling accessory of the month, and the console bundle sold out. Piscatella noted the bundle wasn’t produced in huge quantities, but said it boosted PlayStation 5 sales in that particular week. He called it “about as good as you could hope” from an IP that isn’t at the level of Spider-Man, which describes the old-school model of an exclusive game selling consoles and accessories alongside it.
Gears of War: E-Day hasn’t followed that pattern, in his reading of the Circana data. Piscatella praised the game itself, calling it a “gorgeous” and properly Gears game, but argued that exclusivity limits what it can do as a standalone title. “By making it exclusive, you chop the legs out from under its potential as an individual title in order to boost your platform,” he said, adding that in the short term it hasn’t made a difference. That trade-off looks sharper given the scale of the investment: tbreak has already covered reports that Gears of War: E-Day cost Xbox over $500 million before marketing.
Other Xbox moves face the same verdict
Piscatella didn’t confine his criticism to one game. He said none of Xbox’s recent programmes are showing a positive effect in the sales and engagement data he reviews, and he named two examples. The disc-to-digital programme, he said, hasn’t changed the trend in new physical software sales at all.
The Call of Duty decision fares worse in his account. Xbox removed the series from Game Pass on day one, and Piscatella said Circana’s player engagement tracker shows Xbox lost a lot of engagement as a result, with no offsetting gain. “It’s really hard to find any signs of positivity or hope on that platform right now,” he said.
He also drew a line between goodwill and results. Piscatella said Xbox’s recent decisions are earning “Twitter likes from the most passionate part of their fan base”, but that in terms of actual results he isn’t seeing anything, and he’s “looking really hard”.
GTA 6 and the quarterly numbers
Piscatella also touched on the upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto 6. He said it’s hard to isolate how much of any console’s sales lift comes from a single game, but pointed out that PS5 has been doing well enough while Xbox sales have kept falling. His question was whether people know the game is also coming to Xbox.
Microsoft’s own figures show the same direction. The company acknowledged that hardware sales fell 14 percent in the latest quarter, and GamingBolt reports that Xbox CEO Asha Sharma attributed the drop to the company being unable to meet demand. Piscatella’s analysis points to a different cause, since he says the exclusivity push, the Game Pass changes and the disc-to-digital scheme haven’t produced any visible improvement.
The data cited here comes from one analyst’s reading of Circana’s tracking, relayed through a secondary outlet, and no sales figures were published alongside it. For Xbox, the useful test will be whether the hardware trend shifts once these changes have had longer to settle.
Is Gears of War: E-Day exclusive to Xbox?
According to Piscatella’s comments, Xbox has made the game an exclusive as part of an effort to attract players to its platform. The source doesn’t list platforms or a release date, so check Microsoft’s official page for availability in your region.
Did Marvel’s Wolverine sell more consoles than Gears of War: E-Day?
Circana hasn’t published a direct comparison here. Piscatella said the Wolverine DualSense was the month’s bestselling accessory and the PS5 bundle sold out, while Xbox hardware sales kept declining.
Has Microsoft responded to the criticism?
Not in the source. Microsoft has acknowledged a 14 percent fall in hardware sales in the latest quarter, and Asha Sharma attributed it to the company being unable to meet demand.
