Xbox's PS5 Strategy Pays Off As Gears Reloaded Easily Passes 1 Million Players In Under A Week

Gears of war dispite it's age is an amazing game and even better with the recent tart up haha ✌️

And to think the original game dates back to 2006 — it really makes you realize that back then, developers did a lot with very little. Now it’s the opposite: they do very little despite having much more powerful machines and many more tools. That’s why so many recent games are poorly optimized and lazy. I’m not talking specifically about Xbox, but in general.

In any case, for those who’ve never played it, it’s a gem, and this remaster is the best way to experience it. For others, replaying the campaign if you’ve already played the original version not too long ago has little value. What’s left is the multiplayer and playing it in co‑op — I still need to try that, by the way.

Good for them. Really glad to see that this has gone down well, and no doubt the folks over on PS will appreciate a classic. I doubt this will top FH sales on PS, but it will no doubt do well enough.

1 million "players" isn't exactly good imo.
There's at least 25 million Game Pass subs. To only get 1 million players across Game Pass on Xbox and PC and PS5 is kind of low. I'm sure Microsoft was hoping for much, much better. Lowest Steam launch of any Gears game as well.

@TheGameThrifter given that it's a remaster of a remaster, I doubt Microsoft's expectations were that high. And the way I see it that game is just to introduce PS owners to Gears before the next Game launches next year. I really wonder how long it'll take for Microsoft to launch every game day and date on PS5 as well. Probably not that long since some people at Microsoft mainly see dollar signs.

@tho_mi If the game were to introduce people on PlayStation to Gears Of War for the next game, they definitely had more sales in mind. People aren't just going to buy the 6th game in a series (prequel or not)

I actually said this when it was announced, Gears Of War was a great game....20 years ago, but people who like Fortnite, Apex Legends, Call Of Duty ECT aren't going to be playing Gears long because the multiplayer is brutal and tough to master. I think Gears just isn't what it used to be.

@TheGameThrifter It’s 2 days worth of data. It’s a great metric by any stretch of the imagination. Quoting 25m GamePass subs as if all those gamers are going to play it and all going to play it Day 1 is a wildly unrealistic expectation.

@Rob3008 It's extremely low for all 3 platforms. Perhaps Gears Of War just doesn't swing the same weight it once did? I mean Gears Of War 5 only got a 3 million "players" announcement and never got another update on numbers after that. And that launched on Game Pass and was on PC day one.

Were you around for Gears mania back on the 360? Gears MADE the 360, and now it gets 1 million players between all platforms, and not even sales...but players. It's not a good look.

@somnambulance Easy to dwarf such a low number, but the problem is that they will likely start with Halo CE on PS5 and that game like Gears plays extremely slow in 2025/2026. No aim down the sights and no sprint. Gears was fun 20 years ago, but in 2025 in an age of Fortnite, Apex, Warzone ECT People aren't going to stick with clunky and hardcore multiplayer games.

@TheGameThrifter It's the same game that already exist on 2 platforms. So obviously it won't attract much from those platforms. But on PlayStation there is nothing like this. So, I think it's a good number. Also, Microsoft hardly cares about sales for a 2-decade old game with just a slightly new coat of paint.

@Tonmoy The 1 million is counting those using Game Pass or that got the free upgrade from the 2014 release...lol

Microsoft probably wanted big numbers so they can sell E-Day on the platform...lol
It shows that there is little interest in what was once their biggest IP.

I don't think Microsoft had particularly high expectations of the game either on the PC or on the Xbox, @tho_mi & @TheGameThrifter. The game has nothing added to it. No work has been done to it other than to give it a shinier, and slightly faster, presentation.

It is, truth be told, a pretty lazy upgrade that was only done because they could not sell the game at 1080p 30fps/60fps to the PlayStation consumer. The lack of additional work done to the game is also likely why they gave it to us for free too. Honestly, if you have played the game within the past 10 years, other than earning the achievements again, there is not a lot of point in returning to it now. I, as a massive Gears of War fan that plays through the entire franchise (Tactics included) one every year or so, am massively disappointed in what they have done here, and somehow, they have managed to break the friendly AI in the game too.

What we really want to see is the sales numbers on the PlayStation. That is the only way of truly telling how the game has performed...

@Fiendish-Beaver We know it didn't sell well on PlayStation because they announced players and not sales. I have a Gears tattoo, I love the franchise, but I didn't bother with this game because it plays slow and clunky in 2025.
I'm sure Microsoft wanted the game to do well on PlayStation because they want to sell PS owners Gears E-Day, or perhaps this was to see if there is interest.
I always thought Microsoft selling their biggest IP on PlayStation was a silly idea that cost Xbox it's identity.

Correction: "ending the Xbox consoles, one grub at a time".

I’ll start seeing these kinds of ports in a positive light for Xbox the day we get… let’s say… The Nathan Drake Collection or literally any other old remastered iconic PlayStation first party franchise landing on Xbox. Until then? Cute try but this suxx imo.

Helldivers 2 is just a breadcrumb compared to the full course meal Microsoft is serving up on PS.

It's a bit disappointing that it isn't a full remaster with upgrade visuals of the whole trilogy, but hopefully Reloaded does well enough to pave the way for the other 2 parts in the trilogy.

End of the console wars? Dammit does this mean we have to be friends now?

@TheGameThrifter This, companies use weasel words to trick people into thinking they have better metrics. If 1 million people buy a game, they'll say that. But if it under performs, they'll use players, which includes people playing using a Subscription, who got the game for free, or played but refunded it. And in this case specifically a lot of people got this as a free upgrade, so it's got another factor against it.

It would be interesting to see how many of these are gamepass users. With 30+ million having access to this game, I would expect higher totals than we have seen.

Peak player count on steam is under 5,000. It's safe to say it didn't sell squat on that platform. I would be surprised if playstation has much more than 100k sold.

1 million player count could also be seen as less than 3% of gamepass users even booted this up in the first week.

@BacklogBrad
Ultimate edition was released on PC 10 years ago.

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition released simultaneously on the PC and the Xbox back in 2015, @BacklogBrad. Indeed, I bought it there as Game Pass was not on PC at the time, and then bought a second copy for the Xbox too because back then it wasn't possible to buy once and play it on both the PC and the Xbox. When PC Game Pass launched in 2020 (or 2021, I forget which), GoW:UE was then available there too...

What a lot of people are failing to realize and factor in is Gears Reloaded released at the same time as the MGS3 remake.

As big as Gears has been for Microsoft, MGS has been huge for PS and other platforms. The remake was highly anticipated. Gears would have been better off releasing later this month or even in October. 250k on PS5, one of which was me, is definitely low, but looking at what also released around it, it's not surprising. Hopefully it picks up steam so the rest of the series comes over.

I would suspect that E-Day would sell way better on PS5 with it being the most current in the series. But I'd still like the rest of the series as well. The 360 titles would definitely need a bit of polish graphically, but 4 and 5 could definitely get away with being straight ports. A collection would also probably be the best way to go. If they're expecting people to pay $40 per title for games that are mostly well over 10 years old, they're simply being way too greedy. $100 for a complete collection would definitely sell though as it'd carry a lot of value, plus catch people up in one go as opposed to trickling them in over the next 5 or 6 years.