If you had ever hoped to see Gears of War show up for your Mac or iPad, it's pretty safe to assume it's never going to happen. On Monday Microsoft Studios confirmed it has acquired the game series from developer Epic Games, according to GamesIndustry International.
Gears of War is the popular third-person action game franchise developed for Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. It's spawned sequels and expansion packs. The game is a futuristic shooter in which the troops of an elite squad of soldiers battles against a subterranean alien enemy.
The game uses Epic's Unreal Engine, which Epic has ported to different platforms including OS X and iOS. In fact, it's been used for iOS games like the Infinity Blade series. That cross-platform support made some Apple gamers wonder if Gears of War might ever see a Mac or iOS treatment. Even Donald Mustard, head of Chair Entertainment, Infinity Blade's developer, once thought Gears could run on the iPhone.
Gears for Apple devices was, quite frankly, always a longshot, as the series has been exclusive to Microsoft platforms since it launched. Still, the possibility remained — even for the head of Microsoft's game studios, Phil Spencer. Spencer was asked by Kotaku in November about the possibility of Gears remaining an Xbox exclusive. It was up to Epic, he said at the time.
With Microsoft buying the game property outright from Epic, Gears will stay locked on Microsoft hardware and software. From here on out, Microsoft is going to make sure the property remains a showcase game for their platforms.
Source: GamesIndustry International
Reader comments
Gears of War for Apple products? Forget about it, thanks to Microsoft
Microsoft has always been the publisher of GoW. The chance it would ever appear on anything other than Windows or Xbox has always been zero.
Microsoft has published it, but it hasn't owned it. That's the key difference. That's why Microsoft's own head of game studios said it was up to Epic. Now it isn't up to Epic anymore.
I'm actually glad MS got the rights to Gears because it makes for a solid exclusive to showcase on the console. I only hope that Black Tusk doesn't destroy the brand. Xbox needs solid titles that are exclusive to compete with PS exclusives like The Last of Us, Killzone, etc.
So Microsoft uses their Big Bags-o-Money™ to be anticompetitive? Isn't this to be expected, re-Skyrim/GTA expansion exclusivity to XBox.
Peter, realistically though this was the only way a new Gears of War was even going to happen. The series was dead, Epic wanted nothing to do with anything new Gears related. It was this, or nothing. I own an XB1 so of course I'm ecstatic about this news but I think your headline is a bit misleading here, as even in the article you say it was a longshot.
C'est la vie.
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It would have been nice to shoot a few aliens on Mac. Oh well.
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Who cares? GoW is just another shoot-em-up game for morons who think "blowing shit up" is fun or fantasise about being in the Army so they can kill people.
There are a million of these type of games and the world will not run out of them anytime soon.
It's okay, I guess. We still have about 10,000 or so awesome games on the AppStore.
Oh well, you win some and the you lose others! I guess you can't miss what you never had.
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