An Xbox marketing boss has denied that Gears of War: E-Day skipping PlayStation 5 was a last-minute decision despite fans discovering what they believe is overwhelming evidence that it was.
After it was discovered that Microsoft hastily removed a recent video showing a PS5 logo for Gears of War: E-Day (see below), marketing boss Aaron Greenberg said it is "not true" that Microsoft canceled a PS5 edition of the game at the last minute.
"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," he said.
"It is not true that it was a last-minute decision" to have E-Day be an Xbox console exclusive, he added.
Asked when Microsoft made the call to not bring E-Day to PS5, Greenberg said he became aware of it "roughly a month in advance," but he didn't clarify any further.
On the night before the Xbox Games Showcase, reporter Jeff Grubb said Microsoft had been working on a PS5 edition of E-Day but canceled it.
“Gears of War: E-Day was going to be on PS5–it’s not anymore. That just happened. That’s a decision that just got made," Grubb said on June 6.
After the Xbox Games Showcase on June 7 where E-Day was announced as a console exclusive on Xbox, Grubb said there is a "basically finished version of Gears for PlayStation sitting on a drive." Retailer listings for a PS5 edition of the game were also discovered, though these can be unreliable.
People also thought that E-Day was going to release on PS5 because Microsoft brought Gears of War: Reloaded to PS5 in 2025. It was the first Gears game ever on a PlayStation platform.
This may not have been the first time that Microsoft told one of its teams to stop working on a version of a game for Sony's console. Redfall director Harvey Smith said in an interview in 2023, following Microsoft's buyout of Bethesda, that Microsoft told him "No PS5." At the time, Microsoft said it had not "pulled" any games from PlayStation, but it did not deny what Smith had said or that it had canceled a Redfall PS5 edition.
E-Day and Clockwork Revolution are two of Microsoft's upcoming Xbox console exclusives, and more are coming as part of Xbox CEO Asha Sharma's efforts to "reset" the Xbox business and convince people to buy an Xbox.
E-Day and Clockwork Revolution are not timed exclusives for Xbox on console, Microsoft has said, suggesting they will never come to PS5. At the same time, Greenberg said in 2021 that Starfield was not a timed exclusive on Xbox ... and then it came to PS5, so it was indeed a timed exclusive.
During the Microsoft vs. FTC court case to help get Microsoft's blockbuster deal for Activision Blizzard across the line, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella discussed why he is so against exclusives on consoles.
"If it was up to me I would love to get rid of the entire exclusives on consoles, but that’s not for me to define especially as a low-share player in the console market. The dominant player there [Sony] has defined market competition using exclusives, so that’s the world we live in. I have no love for that world."
Things are different now.
Microsoft is taking a case-by-case approach to exclusivity, as Halo: Campaign Evolved and the Fable reboot are still coming to PS5, and other games will as well.
Under Xbox's previous leadership, including Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond, Microsoft began to release more of its games across competing platforms in an effort to reach more people, and make more money. The plan seemed to have worked, at least in some cases, as Forza Horizon 5 alone made more than $300 million on PS5.
Xbox's new chief strategy officer, Matthew Ball, recently discussed how Xbox--as a brand and a business--"languished" under Spencer and Bond.
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