The Coalition’s Gears of War: E-Day has become the latest Xbox PR banana skin for the software king of the world, Microsoft.
Ahead of the Xbox Games Showcase, Jeff Grubb said the PS5 version had been removed, with the decision “just made”. The Verge’s Tom Warren backed up the claim, which forced Xbox games marketing vice-president Aaron Greenberg onto social media with a mop.
He wrote: “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 the showcase.”
Warren then asked about the timing of the decision.
“A lot has changed since Asha came into role 107 days ago. We are moving fast, and it’s frankly pretty energising inside the hallways here. I was made aware of these exclusives roughly a month in advance. Hope that helps!”
That would have been the end of it, had Xbox not immediately wandered into a rake. The latest episode of the official Xbox Podcast went live yesterday and focused on the Gears of War: E-Day deep dive from the showcase.
When the trailer appeared again, the PS5 logo was still sitting there like a marketing bunny’s career-ending Easter egg. Microsoft later pulled the podcast and uploaded a new version sans the PS5 badge.
By then, the internet had already taken screenshots, sharpened its knives and decided the insiders were probably right. Greenberg may have a point that new Xbox chief executive Asha Sharma has arrived like a management consultant with caffeine poisoning.
Since taking the role, Sharma has apparently been moving fast, cutting the Game Pass price after the 50 per cent rise battered the subscriber base. The latest shift appears to be a renewed focus on exclusives, handled case by case and mostly for single-player games.
Multiplayer games are still expected to appear across multiple platforms. Still, a month’s notice should have been enough to remove a PS5 logo from a trailer.
This is not some deep technical integration problem involving cloud saves, crossplay, rights clearance and three legal departments. It is a logo on a video, and Xbox still managed to ship the wrong version on its own official podcast.
Gears of War: E-Day launches on 6 October 2028 for PC and Xbox Series S|X.
