Gears of War: E-Day Sold an Estimated 230,000 Copies as 1.7 Million Played on Game Pass

Gears of War: E-Day has sold an estimated 230,000 copies since its early-access launch on 1 October, according to Alinea Analytics' Rhys Elliott, who posted the figures on X on 9 October. The same estimate puts Game Pass players at around 1.7 million, as reported by IGN and Eurogamer.

None of these numbers come from Microsoft, which has not shared sales data for the game. This piece sets the estimates against what can be checked: Steam's public review and player counts, the edition prices on the store, and the arithmetic behind the reported $37 million.

What do the Gears of War: E-Day sales estimates say?

Of the 230,000 copies, Alinea puts 168,000 on Steam and 62,000 on Xbox stores (console and the Xbox PC app combined). That makes Steam roughly 73% of all copies sold, for a game Microsoft markets as an Xbox console exclusive. The bigger number sits on the subscription side: about 1.7 million Game Pass players, of whom 722,000 paid for the $30 Premium upgrade that unlocked early access.

Elliott called them "soft numbers for a flagship" and argued that day-one Game Pass is "cannibalising much of the premium revenue". By his count, nearly 12 Premium upgrades were sold for every copy sold on Xbox (722,000 against 62,000).

Does the $37 million figure add up?

Roughly, yes. The Standard Edition is $69.99 on the Steam store page, the Premium Edition is $99.99 and the upgrade for Game Pass members is $30 (prices compared in our editions and early access guide). Multiplying the estimates by US list prices gives the table below.

Two caveats keep this from being exact. These are gross list prices before platform fees, sales tax and regional pricing, and some copies were the more expensive Premium Edition. So the $37 million reads as what players spent, not what reaches Microsoft. The more telling detail is the split: on these estimates, upgrades sold to subscribers brought in more than every copy sold combined.

What do Steam's own numbers show?

Steam is the only store that publishes live data for the game. At 06:38 UTC on 10 October the store page listed 7,013 user reviews, 74.6% positive ("Mostly Positive"), up from 6,419 when we read it for our evidence-based review on 9 October. At 06:37 UTC, 16,645 people were playing, and Steam's player charts listed a daily peak of 26,994, placing it 75th by players in game.

Neither figure converts into sales: reviews and concurrent players are not copy counts. What they do show is that the PC audience the estimate describes exists, with five-figure player counts four days after the full launch.

What it means for players

For anyone deciding whether to play, little changes: the game is out, well reviewed (our formula gives it 8.3, "Great") and included in Game Pass. With early access over, the $30 upgrade now only adds the Premium Edition's extra content, which our editions guide lists item by item.

The longer-term question is strategy. Eurogamer notes that new Call of Duty games have already stopped launching straight into the subscription, and numbers like these feed the argument that Xbox's other big series could follow.

What we don't know yet

• Official figures: Microsoft has not confirmed any sales or player numbers for E-Day.
• Subscriptions: how many new or returning Game Pass members the game brought in, which IGN describes as unclear.
• The tail: these are launch-window estimates, covering the period from the start of early access on 1 October to 9 October.