Xbox confirms second console exclusive at summer gaming showcase

Xbox's new CEO Asha Sharma backed up her words with firm commitments to fans by announcing two new exclusive games.

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Exclusives are back at Xbox. Today at the big Xbox summer showcase, the group confirmed two games would be kept exclusive to the platform: Clockwork Revolution, the new BioShock-like shooter from inXile with time-bending mechanics, and Gears of War E-Day, the next mainline game in the long-running series.

"Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will be XBOX console exclusives. These are not timed exclusives. Games already announced for multiplatform releases will stick to that plan - we're committed to investing in and growing XBOX both on console and beyond," Xbox's Matt Booty said at the show.

Console exclusive is a bit of a misnomer, though; although Microsoft uses this term in their marketing, both of these games will still come to PC (both of the links above are for Steam versions). In this case, the term console exclusive translates to "not on PlayStation 5 or Switch 2."

These are two core, smaller-scale games that belong to the Xbox Game Studios division, meaning the titles aren't bound by any worldwide regulations. For instance, agreements signed years ago from the Microsoft-Activision merger prohibit Xbox from making games like Call of Duty exclusive to their first-party platform.

It's unclear what kind of effect this will have on the Xbox business, but on the whole, Microsoft's big third-party hits are annualized titles and/or live service games, not releases in highly-embedded, but not materially-meaningful, franchises and series. Clockwork Revolution is also an unproven game and could help test the waters for more exclusivity options.

The news also comes after it was reported that Gears of War E-Day listings were spotted on both PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2, indicating that Microsoft may have cancelled these plans--potentially buying out of contracts that it may have signed with Sony.