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Gears 5, the latest blockbuster game coming from Xbox Game Studios had the biggest launch for any first-party game for this console generation, Microsoft announced today. That’s not really surprising considering Microsoft has been promoting the game like crazy, providing great fan service by including characters from Halo: Reach, Terminator: Dark Fate, and even Dave Bautista himself.
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Time to be The Animal! You can play as Batista in #Gears5 beginning right now as @WWE #ClashofChampions gets underway.
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Find Batista in the Marcus character customization menu. pic.twitter.com/0xPsX3PMTJ
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— Gears of War (@GearsofWar) September 15, 2019
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“The performance easily doubled the first week’s debut of Gears of War 4 and made Gears 5 the most-played Xbox Game Studios title in its first week since 2012’s Halo 4. First week performance includes the four-day early access period beginning Friday, September 6, which was exclusive to Gears 5 Ultimate Edition and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members. On the PC, Gears 5 has nearly tripled the performance of its predecessor, becoming the biggest-ever launch for Xbox Game Pass for PC, and Xbox Game Studios’ best-ever debut on Steam,” wrote Aaron Greenberg, Xbox Games Marketing General Manager.
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Gears 5 received great reviews upon release, and we reported last week that it beat Fortnite as the most played game on Xbox One. That’s no longer the case following the release of Borderlands 3 on Friday, but Gears 5 developer The Coalition has already detailed its extensive post-launch support plans with a series of “Operations,” each lasting 3 months.
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As usual, Microsoft isn’t sharing any data about how many Gears 5 units it sold since launch, and it’s highly likely that making the game available on Xbox Game Pass on launch day has been cannibalizing game sales. However, getting gamers jump on the Xbox Game Pass bandwagon is probably what Microsoft really cares about, and Gears 5 is probably an excellent bait for that.
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If you haven’t done it yet, we remind you that you can get two months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for just $2, which will give you access to Xbox Game Pass for console, Xbox Game Pass for PC, and Xbox Live Gold. With so many games on the Game Pass catalog, that’s really a deal you don’t want to miss.
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\n\nFurther reading: Gears 5, Video Games, Windows 10, Xbox Game Studios, Xbox One
