Gears of War: E-Day reportedly cost Xbox more than $500 million to make

Gears of War: E-Day cost Xbox more than $500 million to make, not counting marketing, according to a Kotaku opinion piece by Ethan Gach published October 22. The figure comes from a single source familiar with Xbox's business. Microsoft did not respond to Kotaku's request for comment, and neither Xbox nor developer The Coalition has ever disclosed a budget.

Two reporters who cover Xbox closely backed the number within hours. Chris Dring said it matched what he had been told. Jez Corden agreed with the total but said his sources disagree on how the money was split, as Pure Xbox reported. The Coalition also does work for other Xbox teams, so the studio's total spending may not equal one game's budget.

What happened to the PS5 version

E-Day launched October 6 on Xbox Series X|S and PC, through the Xbox app and Steam, and joined Game Pass, Xbox's subscription service, on day one. Premium Edition owners started playing five days earlier, on October 1. Our launch and ranked play guide covers the release schedule, and our PC requirements and storage guide covers setup.

Microsoft never announced a PS5 version, but signs of one surfaced in June. On June 7, hours before the Xbox Games Showcase, Jeff Grubb said on a livestream that the game had been headed to PS5 and no longer was, as VGC reported. The same day, the site of PEGI, Europe's age-rating system, listed PS5 among the game's platforms, and billbil-kun confirmed on Dealabs that a product code existed for a physical PS5 edition. At that June 7 showcase, Xbox announced E-Day as exclusive to its consoles and PC. The next day, June 8, Xbox pulled a trailer from its official podcast that ended with a PS5 logo.

Xbox later told VGC the exclusivity is not timed, meaning there is no plan to bring the game to PS5 down the line. The company also denies that the PS5 call was made at the last minute. Aaron Greenberg, Xbox's vice president of games marketing, said on X he knew about the exclusives roughly a month before the announcement. The Coalition creative director Matt Searcy said in an interview that the team never talked about bringing the game to PS5, according to Game Informer. The rating, the product code and the trailer point to a PS5 version in progress, but no public evidence shows when it was dropped.

Where the $500 million number comes from

Tom Henderson said on a podcast in June that he had heard the budget topped $400 million, which Corden disputed at the time because The Coalition splits its work across several projects. Corden now accepts the larger figure but believes it covers the studio's total spending from its previous game through E-Day, as Pure Xbox details. That would include support for Forza and Fable, Unreal Engine tooling, and assets that will carry over into a future Gears game.

If all $500 million went to E-Day, it would far exceed PlayStation exclusives such as Marvel's Spider-Man 2, which Pure Xbox puts at around $300 million. Wccftech calculates that matching $500 million in gross revenue would take more than 7 million full-price copies, before stores take their cut.

How E-Day is selling

Microsoft has not shared sales or player numbers. The best available reference is an Alinea Analytics estimate shared by analyst Rhys Elliott and covered by Push Square on October 10. It puts early sales at about 230,000 copies across Xbox and PC, worth roughly $37 million. Alinea also estimates that 1.7 million Game Pass subscribers started the game and about 722,000 paid for the Premium upgrade to play early. The firm does not fully explain its method, so treat these as rough scale rather than official data.

Kotaku uses those numbers to argue that exclusivity makes sense. Gach estimates that if E-Day matched the 684,000 copies Alinea estimates Gears of War: Reloaded has sold on PS5, Microsoft would net about $33 million after Sony's fee, a small slice of a budget above $500 million. That is the writer's own scenario, built on estimated sales of a remaster, not an Xbox figure.

How much to believe it

A figure above $500 million is credible as The Coalition's spending, since Kotaku's source and two well-connected reporters land in the same range. How much of it belongs to E-Day alone is still unknown. The PS5 version existed at least as a rated product with a retail code, though Xbox denies pulling it at the last minute.

PS5 players have no sign that E-Day is coming. Xbox says the exclusivity is not timed, even as it brings other games to Sony's console, including Forza Horizon 6, which reaches PS5 on January 26. A cost breakdown in Microsoft's financial reporting or a PS5 announcement for E-Day would change that picture.