Rise of the Tomb Raider is an Xbox One exclusive. When Square Enix announced this partnership almost a year ago at gamescom 2014, we were told the deal is timed. It wasn’t until very recently that the publisher confirmed the Xbox exclusivity period outright, revealing that it’s one full year.

But why was this decision made in the first place? And did Square Enix expect the fan backlash? Phil Rogers, Square Enix’s western CEO shed more light on how it all went down in a new interview with Examiner.

“I hope fans know that it wasn’t an easy decision,” Rogers said. “I think any sort of partnership at this level is a decision that took a long time for us to get to. The decision at a studio level, we took very, very seriously. We knew it would, in the short-term, disappoint fans.”

According to Rogers, Microsoft’s “passion” and “commitment” to the franchise are a few of the reasons that lead to this deal. Having a great deal of spotlight on the game is another reason, according to Rogers – referring to how exclusive titles get featured heavily in marketing and promotion.

“We’re about growing our IP, this is a long-term decision. We’re going to take Tomb Raider up to the next level,” he added. “With Microsoft’s belief, passion and sort of muscle to help us deliver, we really think this is going to be an awesome game that people will enjoy for years and years to come.”

Rise of the Tomb Raider is due this November on Xbox one and Xbox 360.


Source: http://www.vg247.com/2015/07/28/tomb-raider-xbox-exclusivity-square-knew-it-would-disappoint-fans-decision-wasnt-easy/

It was never exclusive. Ever. It was made perfectly clear, despite many people's innocent and others intentional misunderstanding of the original announcement. It was made clear it was only ever going to be timed. Which was confirmed and reconfirmed for months from Xbox and SE representatives over twitter and in interviews. There has never been any doubt among most gamers who watched it with clear eyes that it would eventually be on Ps4. Many hoped and insisted that it wouldn't despite the overwhelming evidence and confirmations at the time from both SE and Xbox representatives. This was not a decision that was made later down the line. This was a decision that was made and known from the start. MS paid for a head start and for them to keep quiet as much as possible without flat out lying to consumers about that head start. I'm glad to see this finally confirms that. Thanks for sharing it.

It was a tough decision until the first installment of "passion" cleared the accounts receivable.

was that "sort of muscle" a jab at Xbox One's sales?

My opinion.

This game will bomb and Square will regret this decision.

But it is Square after all and they will cry like they did with past Tomb Raider saying it didn't reach the expectations... your fault, your fault.

Not a great idea now looking back seeing as Uncharted 4 was delayed. And now it's Exclusive and directly competing with HALO 5.

the best part is when they tried saying this is a decision made with "the long term in mind". LOL.

they were money whores and wanted a short term cash in and reduce risk on RoTR, its as simple as that.

All I read was "blah blah blah dollars dollars dollars".

Well Square, good luck with this game sale wise. Two weeks after Halo 5, one week after Black Ops 3, same day as Fallout 4 and one week before Battlefront, and fuck knows what they'll have to battle Holiday 2016 on PS4.

I gagged!