How does this change anything?

I'm a bit skeptical if Gears of War can continue to attract as many fans once the trilogy ended. The last Gears game did nowhere near as much of a splash as Gears 2 or 3 did. We'll see.

With Spencer now suggesting they will take the IP into different genres, I no longer see how that attracts a 'hardcore loyalist' following.
I mean, maybe it will attract new gamers and some of the old who just like the new game, but is MS really THAT crappy at coming up with new IP that they couldn't create new genre games independent of GOW?

Depands how you factor in the massive marketing Ms throw behind them and bundling.  ex Forza gets massive markleting and bundling, its sales could be seen as dissappointing given how much a push it actually gets.  

As a Gears fan who played all of the and even has read some of the books (which mostly aren't really world literature) and even really enjoyed Gears Judgment, I was unhappy with what Phil Spencer earlier said, that they'd like to see more Gears but the Rights are totally Epics Business and they had no plans for the Future of Gears. So for me it's a big Deal. Sweet Chaingunsounds, Gnasherkill, Roadie Run and Hell Yeah Gears Coop on Insane with Unreal Engine 4 must have Xbox One!!

Hardcore loyalists : a) would be expecting Gears to put in an appearance on Xb one well before the buying of it was announced; and b) never left Xb, or rather came back to Xb once MS did their DRM 180. These are the people who are buying the Xb one right now.

The Gears loyalists who were looking to move to PS4 because they thought it might go multiplat can probably be numbered in their 10's of thousands, not hundreds of thousands or millions, IMO. So sure, MS has brought these ones back, but it's not a big number in the grand scheme of things.

If there were any serious Gears fans on the fence to see if that the game would go multi-plat before puling the trigger, they may buy an Xbox One now instead. How big that number is remains to be seen. Still a big play by MS. Gears is still a big franchise.


Unreal Engine 4 come at me.

Really? is that really a serious question>?  you would be surprise how many people love the gears franchise. If it's xbox one exclusive.. i would say this change everything for some.

A proper reboot with no micro-transactions should win them back.

Call of Duty, Titanfall, Halo, Gears of War. Same old same old still going after the dude bro market who think they are too macho to play anything that isn't a testosterone soaked cigarette voice goatee shooter.