The campaign has developed into one of the best-selling PS5 pre-orders right now

After committing to bringing its first-party games to other platforms, Xbox has made a U-turn and is keeping some of its biggest games to itself from now on, at least when it comes to consoles. However, the way Halo: Campaign Evolved is being marketed on PS5 may want to rethink that strategy and direction.

A Halo remake was already confirmed for PS5 before Xbox's recent change of heart on future exclusives. Big money deals are in place and promises have been made. There is no turning back. When Campaign Evolved comes out on July 23rd, Master Chief will be making his debut on PlayStation whether Xbox likes it or not.

Halo Remake pre-orders are selling like hotcakes

Based on the current state of the PS5 pre-order charts, PlayStation owners are very excited about the imminent arrival of Halo. Campaign Evolved Premium Edition, the more expensive pre-order option, is currently the fifth best-selling game on the pre-order chart. The only titles that sell better are Marvel's Wolverine, Madden NFL 27, College Football 27 and Modern Warfare 4.

Although the next Call of Duty is also coming out for Xbox, the series is exempt from console exclusivity due to a promise Xbox made to the government to put those games on competing platforms during the Activision Blizzard acquisition.

To give you a better idea of how popular the Halo remake is ahead of the series' debut on PS5, some of the pre-orders it's currently beating include Persona 4 Revival, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, Control Resonant, and the upcoming Kingdom Hearts Collection, which was revealed during last week's Nintendo Direct but will be available on all platforms.

Is going back to Xbox exclusivity a bad idea?

gears of war e day character looking abandoned.

The popularity of Halo pre-orders further calls into question Xbox's decision to take back its exclusives. Especially after it was claimed that Gears of War: E-Day, the Xbox game that will begin its new era of exclusives, has a budget of $400 million. You would think that a game like this would be released on all platforms to have a chance at success.

Xbox noted that while multiplayer games and live services will be released on multiple platforms, single-player games will be judged on a case-by-case basis. My take from this is that if Xbox thinks the game could sell well elsewhere, then it will be released elsewhere.

If this is accurate, then it's the first indicator that despite being Xbox, the Halo games are too popular not to become cross-platform console games. The same goes for Forza Horizon, with Forza Horizon 6 coming to PS5 later this year. However, Gears of War may have been chosen for exclusivity after Reloaded failed to make it to PS5 last year.