Asha Sharma’s first Xbox Games Showcase as CEO produced one concrete answer to the question the platform’s fanbase has been demanding for two years: Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will be Xbox console exclusives. Not timed exclusives. Not multiplatform releases. Games made for Xbox that you need an Xbox to play.
Chief content officer Matt Booty spelled out the reasoning on Gamertag Radio after the showcase: “We want people to have a reason to get on board with Xbox. We want them to have a reason to buy an Xbox. A reason to be an Xbox fan.”
Sharma posted on X after the showcase: “We want people to choose XBOX because of great games and experiences. That also means giving you something that was made for XBOX. Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will be XBOX console exclusives!”
The reversal is a direct response to documented fan pressure. When Sharma launched Xbox’s Player Voice forum to collect community feedback, the top request arrived with over 19,000 votes and 2,500 comments. It read: “Xbox was built off of great game exclusives. You cannot sell any consoles without a reason to buy the console compared to your competition or even sending your tentpole games over to your competitor. Bring them back please.”
Six thousand users responded in similar terms. The message was uniform: exclusives or irrelevance.
The previous strategy, sometimes called “This Is an Xbox,” argued that Xbox was a platform accessible anywhere — on Smart TVs, tablets, PC handhelds, and competing consoles. Xbox games showed up on PlayStation 5. The underlying pitch was that Xbox was a software ecosystem rather than a hardware destination. That campaign page has since been pulled offline, quietly vanishing from Xbox’s website sometime after Sharma took over.
Sharma was appointed from Microsoft’s AI division earlier this year with no gaming industry background. Her first internal memo warned staff of hard choices ahead and acknowledged that Game Pass subscriber growth had stalled after price increases. Sunday’s showcase was the first concrete output of her tenure.
Two confirmed exclusives and a strategic pivot statement are what the fanbase asked for and got. Whether that slice of the catalog is large enough and compelling enough to make someone choose Xbox over PlayStation or PC is the question the next three years will answer. Booty was also clear: “Our big multiplayer games, live-service games are going to continue to be multiplatform.” Call of Duty, Minecraft, and the live-service titles that generate the most revenue continue shipping everywhere. The exclusives pledge applies to Gears and Clockwork specifically.
The fans who submitted 19,000 votes got what they asked for. Now they find out if it is enough.
Was bringing back Xbox exclusives the right call? Let us know in the comments.
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Sorry, in order for exclusives to matter, you need to have exclusives that people care about.
Not even Playstation can swing that these days as most of their first party content is as bad as the rest of the "modern" triple-A tripe, not to mention the pitifully slow pace of releases industry wide. Naughty Dog, for example, might miss this entire console generation for an exclusive PS5 title (not a PS4/5 compromise like Last of Us 2).
Gears of War was an also-ran franchise 15 years ago. What is it even now?
And Clockwork Revolution is an InXile niche title. I LOVE the Wasteland series by them, but I wouldn't buy a whole damn console to play it, let alone some other title. I seriously doubt there's many that would.
Wrong choice to keep Minecraft/Call of Duty/etc. multiplatform. They want to win? Make exclusives out of every single one of the ips they own. Imagine, how much their player base would grow if COD was only available on XBOX.