Entertainment

Game Pass to eat most Gears E-Day Xbox revenue, analyst says

Vince MaglayaPublished 5d ago3 min readBased on 4 sources
Game Pass to eat most Gears E-Day Xbox revenue, analyst says
Image by TheXomil from Pixabay

Most of the money Gears of War: E-Day could make on Xbox will be cannibalised by its place in Xbox Game Pass, a subscription service that offers games for a monthly fee. That is the assessment of Rhys Elliott, head of market research at Alinea Analytics. The game is launching into Game Pass, where subscribers can play without buying a copy outright. GameSpot

On Steam, the PC storefront, Elliott estimates E-Day has sold more than 120,000 copies. Those sales have generated more than US$7 million in revenue. The figures refer to full-price and early-access purchases, not Game Pass play.

That pace has been slow. Elliott reported fewer than 20,000 Steam copies sold in the six weeks before his post, even with the game entering early access that week. Early access here means a paid early play period before full release. Players can pay an extra US$30 to get in early. post on X

For context, Elliott compared E-Day with three other shooters. It sold more than twice as much as Halo: Campaign Evolved over a similar period. But Call of Duty had pre-sold 450,000 copies on Steam at the time of comparison. Another title, Wardogs, had reached 567,000 Steam sales at the equivalent pre-launch point, with roughly triple the revenue of E-Day. Elliott said E-Day is unlikely to ever reach 1 million copies sold on Steam.

A PlayStation 5 version will not close the gap. Elliott said a port was already in development before it was cancelled. His wider report had also addressed the possibility of a PlayStation 5 release.

Interest on Xbox has centred on trial play rather than purchases. About 1.2 million Xbox players on console and Windows tried E-Day's first beta, according to Alinea Analytics estimates. LinkedIn post

What makes this stand out is the split. Strong beta turnout and solid Steam revenue sit beside soft pre-launch purchases and a subscription launch that limits direct sales on Xbox. For fans, this means success will be measured less in copies sold and more in how many people play through Game Pass.

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