It would appear that the rumors of Gears of War 4 making its way to the PC have been strongly hinted at by Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg.
Over the past few weeks more and more former Xbox One exclusives have been announced to be PC bound, including Killer Instinct, Quantum Break and Gears of War Remastered.
Gears of War 4 (along with the later in the Halo series) are one of the few Xbox One titles yet to be announced for Windows 10 PCs, but finally Aaron Greenberg, who serves as head of marketing at Microsoft’s Xbox division has indirectly confirmed GoW4 will indeed be heading to computers.
Greenberg told GameBlog.fr “Our business is not to prevent players to play the games we create. What we really intend to do is to make sure that our games are utilized by the greatest possible number of gamers.
“Doing so allows the games to enjoy a greater success and in turn, it allows us to reinvest this success into new titles. When you think of something like Quantum Break, being able to offer the game on both Xbox One and Windows 10 helps Remedy and that helps us. This is the vision.
“That said, as first party we will continue to invest in the creation of great console exclusives like Gears of War 4, ReCore, Halo Wars 2 and similar titles. We believe in building one big ecosystem of games.”
“We know that many play on console and we will continue to offer them great games. And there are many games that can be played at the same time on the Xbox One console and PC. Take something like Quantum Break and say “if you pre-order the digital version on Xbox One, you get the Windows 10 version for free, gamers gain a lot with that.”
“The saves are shared, you can continue on PC exactly where you left on the console. There are several benefits at this level for players. And we know that there is a large ecosystem of players on PC that have not been able to play our games thus far. For us, the idea is to make a bigger ecosystem and allow gamers to play titles on the devices they already own.”
The release of Gears of War 4 on the PC wouldn’t be a surprising move given Microsoft’s recent decisions; and it’s clear the company are trying to push the Windows ecosystem (and Windows Store) to as many customers as possible.
With news from Phil Spencer hinting Microsoft are also in the process of working on Xbox One hardware upgrades, it’s clear the company are changing directly rather considerably from the standard fixed hardware cycles found on either the original Xbox or Xbox 360.
From the perspective of Xbox One owners – should this be true; their list of “exclusives” is becoming a little thin on the ground. Scalebound, Crackdown 3 and certain Halo titles are some of the very few not yet announced for PC.
There’s a question of can Microsoft find the right balance in their own ecosystem for a PC vs Xbox One battle, and how will Sony and Nintendo respond to such a potential change in Microsoft’s strategy.
