Xbox VP Says Gears Of War Wasn't Ripped From PS5 Last Minute

Last night, a PS5 logo was spotted in a podcast deep-dive into Xbox exclusive Gears of War: E-Day, indicating that the game, now Xbox-exclusive, was previously intended to release for the rival platform. The episode was later taken private on YouTube, but Microsoft says the decision to seemingly reverse the game’s multiplatform status did not happen at the last minute.

“We just limited the knowledge of this news to a very small internal group,” head of Xbox marketing Aaron Greenburg wrote on X. “Intention was to share this news first with our players and everyone watching [the] showcase.” He added, “It is not true that it was a last minute decision.”

According to Greenburg, who’s in charge of crafting the messaging around pivotal moments like Xbox’s summer showcase, the decision to make Gears and Clockwork Revolution exclusive was made a month ago, seemingly by new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, but hidden from many employees until the June 7 announcement blitz. “A lot has changed since Asha came into [the] role 107 days ago,” Greenburg wrote. “We are moving fast and it’s frankly pretty energizing inside the hallways here. I was made aware of these exclusives roughly a month in advance.”

Hey Tom, I can confirm this is not true. 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.

— Aaron Greenberg (@aarongreenberg) June 8, 2026

The implication that the reversal on exclusivity came in hot was fueled by the PS5 logo appearing in the official Xbox podcast, but initially arose from a Walmart store page that went live showing a PS5 version ahead of the Xbox showcase. Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb later claimed that a more-or-less complete PS5 port of Gears of War: E-Day was basically sitting on a computer somewhere already. There was also a lot of noise heading into the showcase about how Microsoft would outline it’s evolving position on exclusivity, with Sharma previously apologizing for the PS5 logos that would be appearing during the fan-focused event.

It’s the latest messy twist to a very messy situation. New chief strategist Matthew Ball tried to rationalize the pivot in an interview with The Game Business yesterday. “Players can expect a reliable pipeline that validates their historical investment in the Xbox platform, keeps them as Xbox players going forward, and everyone in the industry understands that exclusives are important to the growth and branding of that platform,” he said. While exclusives no doubt do drive interest in gaming platforms, it’s not clear how Microsoft’s middle of the road approach to them will really benefit Xbox in the near term, while also raising questions about what will and won’t be made exclusive in the future, and how those decisions will get made.

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