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The XBOX showcase has come and gone, with fantastic gameplay shown from titles like State of Decay 3, Fable, DOOM, Gears of War: E-Day, and Clockwork Revolution. Two of these aforementioned titles have created a greater stir than the rest, as they’ve restarted a once thought-to-be-dead ideal at XBOX: exclusivity.
Gears of War: E-Day has especially caught the attention of the internet due to its potential of having been decided on at the last minute. Rumors were swirling around social media only hours before the show that the game had been pulled from PlayStation only the day before.
Multiple people reported as such, and even Tom Warren of The Verge noticed the misplaced PlayStation 5 logo in a recently deleted Gears of War: E-Day video on the XBOX channel.
Tom Warren noted, “Microsoft changed Gears of War: E-Day to an Xbox exclusive at the last minute. If you want the ultimate proof of that, Xbox posted a podcast today and forgot to remove the PS5 logo from the E-Day art. Xbox has removed the video now.
A lot has changed since Asha came into role 107 days ago. 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. Hope that helps!June 8, 2026
To which Aaron Greenberg quickly replied, “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.”
Further pressed for more information, the timing of the decision was later revealed as well, when Aaron divulged the following: “A lot has changed since Asha came into role 107 days ago. 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. Hope that helps!”
Secrets so good, members of team XBOX were unaware
I’ve watched the internet go back and forth on this, with some folks swearing Aaron Greenberg is only trying to save face. But, it looks like the guy’s just telling it straight.
It’s clear as day that even folks inside Xbox, including The Coalition crew, were left in the dark about Gears of War: E-Day getting slapped with the exclusive tag. Jeff Grub dropped that this decision came down just hours before showtime.
What really happened? It seems the team was deliberately kept in the dark until just hours before the show, a calculated move. The fewer people who know in advance, the smaller the chance of anything leaking out.
The proof that a leak could have happened is right there in the Jeff Grub report. The fact that he was able to gather that information within hours of the team being told goes to show you why they were potentially withholding the information to begin with.
If it wasn’t more obvious, days before the show, Asha Sharma was on Bloomberg Tech, explaining that a platform needs exclusive content and services to grow. Clearly, these decisions were being made recently, but not hours before the show as rumored.
Then again, who’s to blame anyone for some of the back and forth we’ve seen with XBOX messaging in years past? All I can say is this: It seems Asha Sharma is putting the life of the platform first before anything else, and given the amount of time she’s been CEO, she’s doing it quickly and efficiently.
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