Gears of War: E-Day reportedly cost $500 million to make, amid claims it has sold just over 400,000 copies.
The Coalition’s action game launched on Xbox Series X and S and PC only, after Microsoft went down the console exclusive route following Asha Sharma’s arrival as Xbox CEO. As a Microsoft Studios game, E-Day also launched day one on subscription service, Xbox Game Pass.
This week, The Verge reported that E-Day had sold over 400,000 copies across console and PC. That’s a poor sales figure for any triple-A video game of Gears of War’s scope and prestige, but it could be an even worse commercial situation for Microsoft and The Coalition, given the extraordinary budget for E-Day.
Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier rubber-stamped recent reports about E-Day’s budget in a video expanding on the cancelation of Mass Effect 5 and the closure of BioWare.
“We just saw Gears of War: E-Day cost $500 million to Xbox. And that is a real number. That is real,” Schreier said. “That's what we're looking at here. That's what [AAA] games cost to make, especially in North America these days. And it’s driving these game companies to make layoffs, to do cost-cutting, to move development outside North America in a lot of cases, and to focus only on the biggest franchises that have as little risk as possible.”
The $500 million figure for E-Day was first reported by Kotaku , which said it was before marketing costs. IGN asked Microsoft for comment at the time, but it has yet to respond.
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