Gears of War: E-Day reportedly has a development budget of around $400 million, raising serious questions about whether the game can turn a profit as an Xbox exclusive ahead of its October 6 launch.

“Gears of War’s budget is insane. Like I’ve heard upwards of $400 million,” Tom Henderson said on the Insider Gaming podcast. “That budget is absolutely insane for Gears.”

The discussion came alongside reports that Xbox leadership made a late-stage decision to pull the game from a multi-platform release, keeping it off PS5 to remain exclusive to Xbox and Game Pass.

Can it make money on Xbox alone?

The panel was skeptical. “Let’s be honest, it probably wasn’t going to make money even if it was on PlayStation,” Henderson continued.

“Who’s buying an Xbox and Game Pass for Gears?” he added, characterizing the decision to keep the game off PS5 as a “cheap win” to appease Xbox’s hardcore fanbase rather than a sound financial strategy.

The conversation was framed around a leaked internal Xbox memo referenced in a recent Jason Schreier report, which revealed that over the past five years Xbox has spent over $20 billion on content, platforms and hardware subsidies while annual revenue dropped by nearly half a billion dollars.

The memo also noted that console storage component costs are currently more than double what they were last fall, with prices expected to reach five times that level by the 2027 holiday season.

We covered everything shown of Gears of War: E-Day at the Xbox Games Showcase, including the new traversal mechanics and the confirmation of its October 6 release date.

-Dexerto