Gears of War: E-Day habría vendido 230.000 copias, pero 1,7 millones de jugadores lo han disfrutado en Game Pass

Gears of War: E-Day, una de las grandes apuestas de Microsoft para este año, se lanzó el pasado 6 de octubre en XBOX Series y PC, con una recepción muy positiva por parte de la crítica. Sin embargo, sus primeras cifras de ventas serían bastante discretas. Según un informe publicado el viernes por Alinea Analytics, el juego de The Coalition habría vendido unas 230.000 copias, aunque hay otros datos que cambian considerablemente la valoración de su estreno.

De esas ventas, 168.000 corresponderían a Steam y apenas 62.000 al ecosistema XBOX, incluyendo consolas y PC. Sin embargo, la estimación también apunta a que 1,7 millones de jugadores han accedido al título mediante Game Pass, y que 722.000 de ellos pagaron 30 euros adicionales para conseguir la mejora Premium y disfrutar del acceso anticipado, que permitía jugar cinco días antes de lanzamiento oficial. Conviene recordar que son cifras estimadas, no datos oficiales confirmados por Microsoft.

¿Está Game Pass perjudicando las ventas de Gears of War: E-Day?

Rhys Elliott, analista de Alinea Analytics, considera que estos números demuestran cómo Game Pass está reduciendo las ventas tradicionales de los grandes lanzamientos de XBOX. De hecho, asegura que la edición estándar de 70 dólares está prácticamente muerta en el ecosistema de Microsoft, ya que por cada copia vendida se habrían adquirido casi doce mejoras Premium.

Gears of War: E-Day has sold 230K copies (@alineaanalytics estimates).

Steam accounts for 168K of those, with Xbox (console and PC) selling 62K. But there’s more to this story, as Xbox makes up the bulk of revenue (almost three-quarters).

On Xbox, Game Pass is cannibalising much of the premium revenue. Our estimates show that 1.7M folks accessed E-Day via their subscription rather than a copy. But Xbox is having it both ways – or having it halfway, at least – via its Premium Edition Game Pass upgrade.

Game Pass subscribers could pay $30 (or their local equivalent) for up to five days of early access starting October 1. Our estimates show that of the 1.7M who accessed E-Day through Game Pass, 722K paid for the upgrade. Between the review embargo lifting on October 1 and the full release, E-Day managed to shift another 250K early-access upgrades – no doubt helped by the campaign’s rave reviews.

So despite selling far fewer copies on Steam, Xbox accounts for almost three-quarters of the revenue (roughly $26M of the $37M, versus about $11M on Steam). So "230K copies" undersells the paying audience. Including the 722K upgrades, nearly 950K people actually paid something for E-Day.

While E-Day is a sublime game (it's made my top 10), these are soft numbers for a flagship when Xbox badly needs revenue wins. E-Day sold 62K copies on Xbox against 722K Premium upgrades, so for every one copy sold on Xbox, nearly 12 Game Pass upgrades were sold. The $70 premium SKU is – functionally – dead on Xbox.

In a world without day-one Game Pass, many of these folks would have bought E-Day at $70. They paid $30 for five days early access to something they don’t own. Xbox is, in effect, charging its most valuable customers the least, based on a hangover from a tried-and-exhausted strategy from a previous administration.

Those 722K willing-to-pay players generated about $21.7M via the upgrade. If three quarters of this group – mostly US and European audiences – bought E-Day outright, that’s nearly $40M.

Of course, Game Pass does bring in meaningful recurring revenue, and E-Day is adding value for hundreds of thousands of subscribers. However, Game Pass is no longer growing, so Xbox is at a crossroads.

Normally you can’t see what a Game Pass player would have paid, because the game’s just there in the subscription. But the $30 early-access upgrade estimate shows that 722K people demonstrated they’ll spend real money on this game.

Xbox is reportedly looking to do a Netflix and bolt on an ad-supported tier to pad it further. But that will just set a new floor, and leadership keeps telling us the priority now is revenue growth, which is subscriber-speak for ARPU.

Xbox has already pulled Call of Duty from day-one Game Pass after day-one inclusion hammered its sales, with new CoD titles now arriving on the service around a year late. We know that some Microsoft executives believe the service devalues games outright, and rumours (which Microsoft has dismissed so far, to be fair) suggest that day-one releases could be taken off Game Pass.

When a game this bloody awesome and well-reviewed does this softly on its home platform, the model – not the game – gets brought into question.

Which leaves Xbox at a crossroads. Will it keep making Gears games when the financial returns are this thin and the margins this low? And if it does, does the next one arrive off Game Pass at day one – the way CoD now does, or on PlayStation?

More, including player crossover and playtime distribution, on the new Substack.— Rhys Elliott (@superhys) October 9, 2026

Sin embargo, el juego habría generado unos 37 millones de dólares en ingresos, de los que aproximadamente 26 millones procederían del ecosistema XBOX. En total, cerca de 950.000 personas habrían pagado directamente por el juego o su mejora Premium, aunque esta última no incluye una copia en propiedad.

Estas cifras han provocado un debate entre los analistas. Mat Piscatella, de Circana, ha cuestionado la idea de que todos los jugadores de Game Pass representen ventas perdidas. En una publicación en Bluesky, realizada en el contexto de esta discusión, recordó que utilizar un juego incluido en una suscripción de pago no supone automáticamente una venta perdida, ya que muchos usuarios no lo habrían comprado a precio completo.

And it isn't straight cannibalism if a person paying for Game Pass plays an offered game through the service.

Please. Let's be serious people. Or at least try to be.— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 9 de octubre de 2026 a las 19:11

Por otro lado, resulta interesante que la propia Asha Sharma, máxima responsable de XBOX, destacara la semana pasada el buen comienzo de Gears of War: E-Day durante una reunión interna con empleados, señalándolo como uno de los títulos que estaban contribuyendo a la recuperación del negocio de videojuegos de Microsoft.

Por tanto, aunque las ventas tradicionales de Gears of War: E-Day parecen modestas para una producción de esta importancia, todavía es pronto para valorar su éxito comercial. Las estimaciones tampoco permiten conocer cuánto dinero ha generado para Microsoft gracias a las suscripciones, un factor fundamental para entender la rentabilidad de su lanzamiento.