He was upfront.

You just want him to tell you the game is coming to PS4.

He wont, for one or both of two reasons:

1. It is not coming to PS4.

2. As he said, even if it was coming to PS4, it wouldn't be hist job to tell you.

Thats....pretty smart

Actually when I read it again I found this:

Is there a time limit on the exclusivity period?

"Yes, the deal has a duration. I didn't buy it. I don't own the franchise."

If you think its shady, you think its shady. But I'd say you've got some rose-coloured glasses when it comes to Sony then!

And again, the deal has a duration, we don't know whether the deal applies to the game or the franchise - we have nothing even beginning to approach a confirmation.

While I agree that there's enough PR vagueness to keep from marking this as outright confirmation that a PS4 version will be forthcoming, it just seems REALLY short-sighted if the plan is 'Make the second game on Xbox One only, and then make the third game multiplatform.' Previously, I believe Tomb Raider performed better on the Playstation than anything else, but keeping a middle-series-title permanently exclusive to one platform just seems to be a guaranteed way to torpedo the sales of any later titles that go multiplatform. And since any multiplayer titles released in the future presumably wouldn't have Microsoft's support and funding to offset Square Enix's insane budgets, then those lost sales are going to hurt twice as much.

Timed exclusive makes sense. Even permanent exclusive series makes an admittedly more depressing sort of sense, if Microsoft regularly funded production and/or provided financial benefits to Square Enix for ALL the games in this iteration of Tomb Raider, it would offset the aforementioned budget. JUST releasing the one title for the Xbox One, on the other hand, is only going to benefit THAT title, and could severely damage the wider sales potential of Tomb Raider 3, which WOULDN'T have Microsoft's funding to offset this time.

Only way I can think of it making sense is if Square Enix has no particular, long-term plans with this iteration of Tomb Raider, and so decided to squeeze as much profit as they could from their Last Lara Croft Reboot title before moving on to other things.

The odds of Tomb Raider selling significantly on the PS4 if it opens parallel to Uncharted are low. Fool's bet at best.

If there were any better explanation as to why SE won't even bother trying to sell it on the PS4 during that time window and instead allow MS to market it as an XBO exclusive, timed or not, I'd love to hear it.

If one really wants to nitpick Spencer's words, one could argue that TR truly will be full exclusive with all the sequels exclusive as well, since Spencer keeps saying "I didn't buy it", "I don't own it".... Of course he doesn't, Microsoft does. Microsoft bought the whole thing forever....

Yes, it's ridiculous to assume that and to interpret it like that, but not less ridiculous than any other "explanation".

I don't think the exclusive deal is shady, just being so elusive on what the deal actually is. I wouldn't know every time Sony does something like this. Because most of the time it isn't a megaton like Tomb Raider, but perhaps a small Indie or some exclusive DLC/Content for a game, therefore it doesn't get as much media attention and it just passes me by.

Someone should get that guy that sued Sony over KZ graphics to sue the games industry to not mislead about this shit.

It should be clear to the public about exclusive duration's and fully disclosed. I seriously don't get how this is still legal. The whole premise of timed exclusivity as we currently know it IE: never being told if it is timed and the length of it, is nothing but a cheap ploy to trick people into buying products.

The ambiguous/evasive nature of the PR speak coming from the MS side and the refusal of SE to confirm/deny the nature of the exclusivity (whether timed or full) points to the potential existence of a gag clause on their contract with regards to the said nature. I guess if people don't know that something is timed for a long enough duration prior to launch, it might as well be fully exclusive in the market's mind. Which is a good idea coming from the business end, but ethically questionable.

The sad thing is, I was fully supportive of MS if they pulled a TF and saved TR from being cancelled by funding the title. But the fact that this is not looking like the case (as any such occurrence would no doubt be milked for its PR benefits), it is starting to make the first scenario seem more likely. And if the gag clause scenario is indeed proven true (by ROTTR being proven to be timed in the future), it signifies, at least to me, just how low MS is willing to sink to.