| Rafie said:
When a 3rd party developer develops a game exclusively for a platform, it's a first party game? |
No. Anything Microsoft publishes on Xbox platforms is first party. It could not be anything else otherwise. Name another first party on Xbox aside from Microsoft.
Microsoft is publishing RotTR on Xbox One and Xbox 360, it will have the Microsoft Studios spash screen on bootup. Microsoft nets the majority of the money from sales of RotTR on Xbox because they're the publisher.
They won't be the publisher for the PC (presumably) version or the PS4 version, so those versions would not be first party, unless Sony acted as publisher for the PS4 version.
Here's some good examples of definitions:
Forza Motorsport Series - Studio and IP owned, Microsoft Published - First Party game, first party studio
Forza Horizon Series - Studio not owned, IP is owned, Microsoft Published - First party game, 3rd party studio
Sunset Overdrive - Studio and IP not owned, Microsoft Published - First Party game (not franchise), 3rd party studio - franchise potentially could go multiplatform if published by a publisher that isn't Microsoft. Singular published game may be exempt from other consoles if initial publisher has exclusive publishing rights (Ryse or Dead Rising 3)
***Rise of the Tomb Raider is this one - but the publishing rights are timed, which means after 12 months, they revert back to Square Enix and they can publish the game on PS4**
Titanfall - Studio and IP not owned, EA Published - 3rd party exclusive, Microsoft saved TF by picking up the funding when EA were going to can it. Future titles can be on any platform.
2nd party - Does not actually exist, used to be used to denote 3rd party studios who only worked with one first party publisher.
