One day after XBOX CEO Asha Sharma announced that Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will be exclusives, another exec said to expect more. XBOX CSO Matthew Ball attended The Game Business Event, where he reiterated (via VGC) a new strategy of keeping titles on the XBOX platform. This is a 180° turn on the now defunct “This is an Xbox” campaign, which saw many XBOX titles released on competing consoles. Sharma and Ball hit the ground running after taking over XBOX a few months ago and have been busy working to make many changes within Microsoft’s strained gaming division. These latest changes could be considered a retaliatory move to Sony’s recent move back to its own exclusive releases, but despite this, XBOX marketing exec Aaron Greenberg has stated (via VGC)that the decision was not a recent one and had been kept secret for some time.
“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.”
– Aaron Greenber, XBOX marketing
Meanwhile, Ball shared that XBOX fans should expect more exclusives down the road, and its team is examining its game portfolio to decide what they will be. However, regardless of the statement that these decisions were made before Sony’s, XBOX too is still sticking to releasing its live-service multiplayer games, such as Call of Duty, on multiple platforms. Ball labeled these titles as a third bucket of previously committed releases and that they’ve “decided” to honor those commitments. That being said, this statement probably has nothing to do with statements made to regulators when it had to defend its purchase of Activision.
As of now, the upcoming Fable reboot and Halo: Campaign Evolved are still expected to see a cross-platform console release, but the future remains uncertain for other XBOX titles. The CSO told the audience that he and Asha are focused on getting XBOX back into a healthy growth state and will reveal more details when the time is right.
“Every day we are going to come more and more outwards about what we’re doing, why we’re doing it. And the reason why I say that is, today I should give you a more comprehensive answer. Here are all the titles that players can expect this year, next year, and thereafter that are going to be exclusive.”
-Matthew Ball, XBOX CSO