By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Microsoft - Tom Henderson - "Gears of War budget is insane. I've heard upwards of 400 Million dollars"

Leynos on 14 June 2026
JRPGfan said:
Leynos said:

33 was made by far more than 30 people. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/no-clair-obscur-expedition-33-wasnt-made-by-30-people

So they had like 8 animators hired to help, with animation of characters, and some musicians (for music) and translators for localisation ect. ect.

Yeah its more than 30 people,... but like it's not 200-500 people working on it like with AAA games.

And honestly, I don't blame them for getting some extra help....
they are a tiny studio, that made a wonderful game, pretty cheaply, while teaching themselves how to do certain tasks (learning on the go), and doing multiple roles of things themselves.

There is also QA testers. Audio peoples. Looking closer to over 100 people. Shin'En is a studio of 5 people. 



Bite my shiny metal cockpit!

Around the Network
Bofferbrauer2 on 14 June 2026
twintail said:

Is this surprising?

What's surprising is that AAA publishers are still not going the way of the dodo despite regularly coming with such clearly unsustainable budgets.
Leynos said:

Peppridge Farm Remembers when Shenmue had the largest budget of all time at $70 million. Phantasmagoria at $4 million

I remember a time when selling 30k copies of a game made it a smash hit, like Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion for instance...



The Nintendo eShop rating Thread: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=237454 List as Google Doc:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aW2hXQT1TheElVS7z-F3pP-7nbqdrDqWNTxl6JoJWBY/edit?usp=sharing

The Steam/GOG key gifting thread: https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/242024/the-steamgog-key-gifting-thread/1/ 

Free Pc Games thread: https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread/248138/free-pc-games/1/

superjas on 14 June 2026

Although I dispute the figures as this game was built with game pass in mind 400m is less than what Xbox generates on game pass in a month - I am sure Xbox and the Coalition will be fine



trunkswd on 14 June 2026

I do wonder if the rumored budget includes everything they've worked on since Gears 5. They assisted development on Gears of War Tactics, Gears of War Reloaded, and Halo Infinite. As well as doing The Matrix Awakens UE5 demo.

And yes the budget is just a rumor. Nothing is confirmed. Not that I expect Microsoft to reveal the budget of any of its games.



VGChartz Sales Analyst and Writer - William D'Angelo - I stream on Twitch and have my own YouTube channel discussing gaming sales and news, as well as posting random gaming content. Follow me on Bluesky.

I post and adjust the VGChartz hardware estimates, with help from Machina.

Writer of the Sales Comparison | Monthly Hardware Breakdown | Monthly Sales Analysis | Marketshare Features, as well as daily news on the Video Game Industry.

smroadkill15 on 14 June 2026
Kyuu said:
smroadkill15 said:

It's not uncommon for AAA games to range in the 100-500M+ range. What budget defines a AAA game? 50M+? Can't really say, but all the big ones seem to cross over 100M easy these days. 

Gears E-Day is not strictly  linear. It has side objectives like rescuing people in buildings as they demonstrated in the direct. It's the longest Gears game according to the devs. Not to mention 4v4 pvp and 12 person horde mode. 

$100 million and $500 million aren't in the same category. Gears's budget is too high for what it is, why is this even debatable? I don't recall anyone arguing that Spider-Man 2 wasn't too expensive even though it may end up selling over 3 times more on PS5 than Gears on all platforms.

Call a spade a spade.

I'm not arguing Gears budget isn't high lol. 



Around the Network
DekutheEvilClown on 14 June 2026
superjas said:

Although I dispute the figures as this game was built with game pass in mind 400m is less than what Xbox generates on game pass in a month - I am sure Xbox and the Coalition will be fine

This argument makes no sense. Gamepass makes around the same revenue, across PC and XBOX, as PS Plus makes. So, the sales and budgets of Sony games are irrelevant because PS Plus makes $4-5b a year?



PotentHerbs on 15 June 2026
JRPGfan said:
Lets not do this.

No need to throw stones, we all live in glass houses man.
Just because Marathon flopped, there is no need to wish that on others.
Also E-Day looks alot better to me than Marathon, and I'm not a xbox guy (I'm on the other team).

But why not though? 

We can wish for all live service games to fail but can't project that to single player titles lol? There's really no difference. Not saying I want Gears to bomb. But its definitely ironic to see. 



DekutheEvilClown on 15 June 2026
PotentHerbs said:
JRPGfan said:
Lets not do this.

No need to throw stones, we all live in glass houses man.
Just because Marathon flopped, there is no need to wish that on others.
Also E-Day looks alot better to me than Marathon, and I'm not a xbox guy (I'm on the other team).

But why not though? 

We can wish for all live service games to fail but can't project that to single player titles lol? There's really no difference. Not saying I want Gears to bomb. But its definitely ironic to see. 


Well, the whole Live Service hate thing is utterly stupid, and not based in reason.  I mean, imagine if every time they showed a new single player game a whole bunch of people were just like “more single player slop like Mindeyes and Gollum, nobody asked for this!”

Once a game is deemed live service you can feel free to pretend it’s all part of some homogenous genre that all play the same and has no redeemable qualities. 



JRPGfan on 15 June 2026
PotentHerbs said:
JRPGfan said:
Lets not do this.

No need to throw stones, we all live in glass houses man.
Just because Marathon flopped, there is no need to wish that on others.
Also E-Day looks alot better to me than Marathon, and I'm not a xbox guy (I'm on the other team).

But why not though? 

We can wish for all live service games to fail but can't project that to single player titles lol? There's really no difference. Not saying I want Gears to bomb. But its definitely ironic to see. 

lmao you asked a good question. That is honestly just my bias showing.

I prefer single player titles, and don't much enjoy online shooters.
Games for me, are like interactive stories.... that is what makes them great, like a good book or movie.
I don't enjoy competitive games much, or play them anymore these days.

As for GaaS few of them, appeal to me.
The exception to the rule is Path of Exile 1&2..... I love how GGG does their thing.



Ashadelo on 15 June 2026
DekutheEvilClown said:
Ashadelo said:

Like them or hate them, some of these AAA developers need to learn a thing or two from Nintendo and how they budget their games. I can only imagine the amount of money that is wasted on games like this. To many American companies burn millions of dollars because their spending is not managed well.

I really love the Gears series, played and beat 1-5, and I am in no way a Nintendo fan (never owned a NS1 and no plan on buying a NS2) but one thing they do extremely well is manage their money well. Hearing that really is frustrating because if they game does not sell extremely well, it will impact the franchise in a bad way. From the videos that I saw, there is no reason this game needs to have a budget of $400 million (if its true)

The reason Japanese games are cheaper is because people get paid less. Is that really something to celebrate? Obviously there needs to be a balance, and maybe $1m wrap parties are not it, but people getting paid a lot on projects like Spider-man seem like a great thing. Aren't we always complaining about how much inequality is in the world and that not enough of profits to back to the workers.

Or should we celebrate companies like Capcom and Fromsoft paying new graduates at entry level less than the minimum wage in a country like the UK(yes you'd actually get paid more working at McDonalds in the UK straight from school than working as a graduate at Capcom)

Or give more reasons for microtransactions, dlc, loot boxes, skins stores, incomplete games at launch and excuses to fire devs because budget was not hit. 



我是广州人