For a brief moment, it looked like the gaming industry had finally grown out of one of its oldest and most exhausting sales strategies. Xbox and PlayStation seemed to have ditched exclusive games, and the walls separating console owners appeared to have crumbled. Unfortunately, that honeymoon period may have been much shorter than anyone expected as Xbox announced it’s back to making console exclusives.
During the Xbox Games Showcase 2026, Microsoft showcased two major Xbox Game Studios projects: Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution. What immediately caught attention, however, was the fact that both games were announced as Xbox console exclusives. At the time of writing — albeit will also be available on Steam — neither has been confirmed for PS5.
The Gears prequel definitely represents one of Xbox’s most important internal projects in years, after Halo games failed to pull people back in. “[I]t’s only fitting as we return to Xbox, we return to Gears,” as stressed by CEO Asha Sharma during the stream. Meanwhile, even if it’s a new IP, inXile Entertainment’s time-bending steampunk FPS carries similar weight. Revealing that high-profile first-party games will remain ‘console exclusive’ reinforces the idea that Microsoft is rather desperate to sell Xboxes again.
The rather disappointing announcement comes less than a year after we, and many other gamers, declared the console war effectively dead. At the end of August last year, Helldivers 2 crossed over to Xbox while Gears of War: Reloaded launched on PlayStation. Combined, the two releases felt like clear evidence that the industry’s biggest rivals were moving beyond the exclusives. However, mid-2026 has proved that idea flat-out wrong.
After all, although it’s not official yet, Sony seems to be heading in a similar direction. Behind closed doors, PlayStation Studios Business Group CEO Hermen Hulst reportedly told staff that the company’s ‘narrative-driven single-player games’ will remain on PlayStation hardware. That includes ditching the PC release plan for Ghost of Yotei and locking the highly anticipated Marvel’s Wolverine to PS5.
This sudden U-turn is hardly surprising as platform owners are under increasing pressure to justify the existence of their hardware. Development budgets continue to balloon into the hundreds of millions while gaming hardware prices keep rising. In this economy, selling AAA games is one thing; convincing people to buy a console with no exclusives is another thing entirely.
To be fair, this is not exactly a return to the console war of the bygone eras. Crossplatform releases are still more common than ever, and neither company appears to have abandoned them completely. Many games featured during the Xbox Games Showcase 2026, including Fable, a new Senua, and Halo: Campaign Evolved, are still expected to come to PS5. Likewise, PlayStation-funded live-service games and external projects such as Marvel Tokon and Kena: Scars of Kosmora are still launching across multiple platforms. And obviously, third-party developers are free to make their games crossplay capable.
Still, for anyone who thought exclusives were becoming a thing of the past, Xbox’s showcase delivered a disappointing reminder. Reports of the console war’s death may have been greatly exaggerated.
