- A former Xbox executive explains Gears of War: E-Day’s exorbitant budget in a new statement.
- He says the game cost half a billion because The Coalition supports Microsoft’s branch of Unreal.
- A plan to have other studios adopt the custom branch of Unreal and write off the support costs hasn’t worked so far.
A recent report revealed that Gears of War: E-Day cost Xbox a whopping $500 million to make over the years, so the extremely high budget has made it hard for the game to break even without selling at least 7-9 million copies.
Ex-senior Xbox product manager Derek Reese now clarifies that the entire half-billion budget wasn’t just spent on making E-Day, as earlier reports claimed.
Why it matters: Xbox spending $500 million on E-Day and Coalition’s operational costs made it difficult to recoup the game’s budget, especially without a PS5 release. So it may never become profitable at a time when Xbox really needs to secure wins.
Derek Reese explains on Bluesky that the Coalition saw a motley of operational costs in the last few years. A huge portion came from supporting Microsoft’s custom Unreal Engine branch alongside E-Day’s development over the years.
A Windows Central report by insider Jez Corden also clarifies that Coalition has collaborated with other studios that use Unreal Engine, such as for games like Avowed, Hellblade 2, State of Decay 3, and even the upcoming StarCraft reboot.
Many other operational costs also added to the $500 million budget over the years. Regardless, it’s fair to say Gears of War: E-Day did not turn out to be the success story that Xbox leadership would have liked to see despite an overall positive reception.
The game merely sold over 400k copies on Steam and Xbox combined so far, as Game Pass is rumored to have cannibalized most of its sales. The IP also doesn’t have the selling power it once did in its heyday.
So despite a hint by The Coalition CEO, it’s unknown whether we will see new games in the franchise moving forward.
Do you think E-Day’s lukewarm success so far will result in more Gears of War games? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, or join the discussion on the Tech4Gamers forum.
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Shameer Sarfaraz has previously worked for eXputer as a Senior News Writer for several years. Now with Tech4Gamers, he loves to devotedly keep up with the latest gaming and entertainment industries. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and years of experience reporting on games. Besides his passion for breaking news stories, Shahmeer loves spending his leisure time farming away in Stardew Valley. VGC, IGN, GameSpot, Game Rant, TheGamer, GamingBolt, The Verge, NME, Metro, Dot Esports, GameByte, Kotaku Australia, PC Gamer, and more have cited his articles.
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