MS has loads of money so its not a big deal to them.

MS needed to compete with Uncharted 4 (implied by Phil) and instead of making a new IP, decide to..."persuade" SE into getting timed exclusivity for TR.

I agree, it's a bad move for the franchise in general. They might not lose any money and in fact make a good profit, but the franchise will no doubt take a hit after a successful reboot.

All hail MS.

Yah because you know better than SE about this deal (with all the financial details) to call this a better decision, right? :)

Depending on how much MS paid, this is a good move for everyone except for the consumers (and potentially the franchise's future...). MS gets another killer app, SE gets development paid for...win/win.

If the game is not critically acclaimed they're gonna suffer for it, because when it eventually releases on PS4 (and any other platform) people are going to be very aware of that. At launch you catch a lot of people off guard, they had pre-ordered, they barely saw any reviews, word of mouth is close to none-existent. The game sells a lot, sells a lot of "Season Pass" and "Preorder Bonus" crap, people are paying for collector's edition over $80 or even $100. Fast forward a few months, most games are already getting discounted, sold for $45, or even less. It's not the same profit for the publisher, not as high a profit for the retailers. If the game isn't Metacritic 88+ good (rave reviews), and word of mouth isn't strong leading up to the other platforms release, then sales are going to suffer, A LOT. And no amount of money MS gave them is going to make up for that, not a $100 million, and I seriously doubt they got half as much from MS. So this is a HUGE risk for SE.

Because why go up against uncharted 4 and get destroyed. Take the MS money now then release on PS4 6 to 12 months later when the uncharted hype has ended and PS owners are up for another adventure fix.

There are several pros and very few cons for SE...

PRO:

1. They get paid for it by MS

2. They get to release the game later on the platform and the fans will buy it anyway

3. They don't have to compete directly with Uncharted 4, as that game is not available on Xbox One

4. They get the marketing push that MS can provide for their game and the buzz word of beign an exclusive

CONS:

1. A few Sony fans will get upset and may not buy the game, but if they are really fans of the game they will buy it anyway, just a little later

As a temporary exclusive is a win-win for them. A permanent exclusivity will have a lot more cons and unless MS check is very big it will not make financial sense.

Buy it anyway? are you so sure about that? at what price will they buy it though if at all? Read my post above.

Stupidity and $$$$$$$$$$

They will buy it, even at full price, people is upset because they WANT to buy it, so if they don't want to buy a new console to play it during launch and the game is good they will buy it, SE may include some DLC for free to compensate. Just look at the sales of Mass Effect 2 for PS3, it was released 1 year later, it did not had a following on the console and still it sold 1.35 million units, it will be even better for Tomb Raider as the followers are actually there.