Microsoft is in a tricky spot when it comes to Gears of War: E-Day releasing soon, per the latest reports on the development budget going over $500M without marketing costs. The high development cost means Microsoft really needs to sell a lot of units on all platforms to make this worth it for them. The high cost estimates reported are concerning when thinking about big budget exclusive titles being commercially successful in today's market.
Development costs reportedly top $500 million, excluding marketing expenses
Gears of War: E-Day is being made for Xbox ecosystem by The Coalition. Earlier we heard it was going to cost more than $400M in development in June. Recently, per a Kotaku source, we heard it's actually more than $500M. There's a big difference in estimates which is to be expected for big development budget titles to be tracking accurately.
When looking at other big console games, Gears of War: E-Day's reported budget is more than other big games in development. Sony's Spider-Man 2 is $315M and The Last of Us Part II is $220M. Horizon Forbidden West was ~$212M in development costs. The numbers we've seen reported are interesting to help us compare just how big Gears of War: E-Day is against others.
The high budget estimate has been called into question by some, including journalist Jez Corden who previously called the $400M report into question because The Coalition shares studio assets. Now it looks like this is even higher than those numbers. It's certainly a high stake situation for Microsoft leading up to the release.
We've been following Gears of War: E-Day with things like when we reported on 98.6% of Gears of War sales in Spain were physical. It's interesting seeing those physical sales numbers for a big franchise game. The development costs combined with the solid physical sales put Microsoft in an interesting position for this.
What we know for sure is the reported $500M+ budget for Gears of War: E-Day. That's a big number compared to what we heard before and compared to competitors. It's an interesting financial situation for Microsoft going on.
Source: IXBT
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