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DerNebel on 25 July 2015
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SWORDF1SH said:
DerNebel said:

The thing is, and I believe that is what the OP is trying to say, that at this point it seems very questionable if MS is going to benefit from this timed exclusive in any meaningful way. Also it seems unclear how, if at all, Xbox players benefit from this deal, sure there is all this PR talk about MS "definitely helping to make this the best game possible" but there's nothing tangible here outside of being able to play it sooner than other platforms.

To use the Street Fighter example, what that game does for Sony seems a lot clearer. First, even if this website doesn't exactly feel that way, real world interest in SFV is currently a lot higher than in RoTR, the game also releases at a much less unfortunate time and will, unless something goes horribly wrong, be the premier fighting game at tournaments for years to come, so it will also be relevant for all that time, finally it of course is not coming to other consoles for its entire lifecycle. And also the benefit for players seems a lot more tangible, even ignoring the whole Capcom wouldn't have been able to make SFV alone aspect since that would only start arguments, for instance the player pool will for the first time not be split up and for pro players Sony has exponentially risen the prize pool in the Capcom cup to $500k. There's also the new DLC method, but I don't want to give Sony too much/Capcom too little credit here, that may have been Capcoms own idea.

The TROTR deal doesn't benefit gamers correct but it does benefit MS. The TR franchise has turned a corner and has good momentum behind it (although this deal will do more harm to the franchise on PS in the long run. Think Bioshock and Mass Effect) and to have it exclusive for a whole year is a big deal. MS will advertise the shit out of it this holiday and couple this exclusive with Forza and Halo and it will shift a lot of consoles.

MS are also the publishers for the game on their platforms so although they will spend millions on advertising (advertising that will also shift the X1) they will also be getting a bigger cut from sales. This game will been seen be seen by millions of gamers as full exclusive.

Eh, I don't see it all. Look at the games release schedule, it releases the same days as freaking Fallout 4 (which MS is incidentally co-marketing as well) a week before Battlefront, a couple days after CoD and a couple weeks after Halo 5, that game will be eaten alive during that time frame. And I've said this before, but the only exclusive that will be actually relevant in shifting consoles this holiday season will be Halo 5, everything else will be up to multiplats and prize.

Just take a look at Amazon.com, RoTR is currently at #503 of the bestseller list, compare that to the X1 versions of the games I've listed here and it's not even close:

Fallout 4: 82

Battlefront: 120

CoD: 49

Halo 5: 212

So really I don't see TR move a huge amount of units, let alone consoles this holiday season and I expect most of the MS marketing in the timeframe of its release to be focused on Halo 5 and later Fallout 4, both of which will shift a lot more X1s than this game, also MS marketing money isn't as much of a guarantee as some people like to make it out to be.