Xbox Chief Strategy Officer Matthew Ball confirmed a strategic shift toward console-exclusive games to drive hardware sales. Upcoming titles including Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will be exclusive to Xbox consoles and PC. This strategy reverses a previous multi-platform approach, though major live-service games will remain on competing platforms.
Ball suggested in-game advertising could mitigate rising development costs across the industry. He compared the concept to ad-supported tiers on streaming services to provide cheaper consumer options. Ball clarified this is an industry-level discussion rather than a specific Microsoft product announcement.