http://plebegaming.wordpress.com/2014/08/14/square-enix-sacrifices-sales-with-rise-of-the-tomb-raider-timed-exclusivity/

That Polygon article is hot garbage, refutable by anyone that can do fifth grade math. I know I'm currently just a scrub reading forums and blogging on the internet, but at least I don't post utter garbage like that.

We all know games see their best sales within the first few days or the first week, and AAA titles sell more on hype than any other factor. Staggering the releases only means that the hype has a chance to die before it releases to the widest audience.

SE may come out ahead on this deal, but that would only be if Microsoft throws enough cash at them, because it sure as hell won't be from increased sales.

They did get the more profits part right though. Without that SE would've never made the deal.

Obviously, but what can ya do? Idiots like them shall forever be idiots

Of course it will net more sales. ..

On xbox

That remains to be seen. How desperate is Microsoft to get even one multiplatform title that sold better than the PS4 version? The answer to that question will correlate to the size of the check they cut SE.

As a FFXI player for going on a decade now, I've seen SE do some dumb things. It wouldn't surprise me if they went for a little extra money without thinking about the backlash in lost sales. This is the company that released the original version of FFXIV and blew so much on the first Tomb Raider of this reboot cycle, that 3.6mil was only about half of their "very conservative" sales estimates, and marked the title as a commercial failure.

Don't you mean globally on Xbox in the US?

If it was totally exclusive I would disagree with the article completely. However, since we now know TR will come out on PC/PS4 eventually I agree with the point on profit. Square has received a chunk of cash from MSFT and in addition people who are fans will still likely buy the sequel at some point. They may have to wait, but long time fans will wait (even after they bitch 100 times they will not).

That kinda logic was never drilled into me. 

LMAO classy