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Rise of the Tomb Raider Crystal Dynamics FAQ - Confirms timed exclusive for XB1/360

Yes, exactly. I don't like the wording they're using there.

It's strange to me as I recall Nixxes handling a lot of their ports in the past. For TR Underworld Crystal only worked on the Xbox 360 version while the other versions were farmed out. I can't understand why they would work on a 360 and Xbox One version simultaneously. I'm hoping they're simply being vague and the 360 version is being farmed out.

Right now Nixxes lists that they're handling Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris as well as an unannounced game

http://www.nixxes.com/nixxes/projects

It's possible that they're working on the 360 version of TR, but it'd odd that they haven't announced that they are since they tend to announce those things right around the time the games are announced. So it's also possible that they're working on another Eidos property. We know that there are new versions of Hitman and Deus Ex in development, and they were responsible for the PC versions of both of those games.
 

Huggers

Member
I really think a huge amount of the backlash could have been avoided had they just said 'timed'. They say the gamescom stage wasn't the right place to go into detail, I'd say it was the ideal place to mention this. People would have still been pissed but they would have appreciated being told upfront what the deal entailed
 
Maybe thats the problem.

Every major community online knows of the collective opinion of others on their site, you just choose to ignore it because if every time somebody says something remotely bad someone else says "hey guys stop, remember what others think about you" then no discussion would ever get through. There's a certain point where caring what others think about you just becomes counter-productive.

Whose problem? Not ours.

If people outside the forum saw the NeoGAF as a pro-Microsoft collective during the Xbox 360 years, fine. If people outside the forum see the forum as a pro-PS4 collective now, fine. Either way, nobody's changing the narrative because someone on the outside is way too invested in the bouquets/brickbats being lobbed at their console of choice.

tl;dr - suck it up.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Pro-consumer will win here, if people choose to ignore it and just pretend GAF is Pro-whatever isn't fucking consumers over as much, then that says more about them than it does about us. We still have fanboys who both attack and feel attacked, but those come and go.
 
N4G is a fucking cesspool lol. clickbait, rabid fanboys, and tales from my ass out the ass haha.

haha went to look for example comment, good lord

You're an idiot. I was going to post a retort to your ignorance, but then decided why should I when your ignorance is so obvious to everyone anyway. So I'll just say it again, you're an idiot.

On topic, I do have to agree with Senjetsu, there is no real way of knowing where MS's money will go...
 
D

Deleted member 20920

Unconfirmed Member
I was trying to be respectful by not making it necessary. If you really want to bring forward some nonsense you wont have to go far. And your wrong, perception IS everything. Reality isnt fair. Ironically speaking, its the reason why the XB1 is where it is right now. Ironically, its the whole meaning of my initial comments. The perception that Micorsoft is this evil company who wants to kill the gaming industry. And throw bags of money at publishers to feed its beast & deny gamers. And everything else they do that goes under fire. Even if its something good, it isnt ever good. Perception is the reason why the PS4 is top dog. And the reason why you care to defend NeoGAF. I admire your passion, but the world doesnt run on reality. It runs on perception. The perception of whats cool & whats not. When reality says, what exactly makes something cool or not? We dont ask these things, you know why? Because the answer is perception.

I don't think any sane poster here thinks that Microsoft is an evil company who wants to kill the industry. Why would they when they need the industry to make money. Most just see it as a company that has made some questionable decisions when it comes to the Xbox One. People here have made both reasonable and unreasonable arguments about why they hate, like or have no opinions about money hatting. Like Amirox said, if you looked back at the older threads people were criticising Sony as much way back when the PS3 was released.
 

playXray

Member
Gotta say, I'm not impressed with all the double-speak and obfuscation. Paying for a timed release? Fair play to Microsoft. Deliberating trying to confuse (and in the process alienate) fans? Not good.

Why did no-one mention that it was cross-gen until now? And how can state that the fans were "considered" through all of this when most current fans will not be prevented from playing this at launch due to the exclusivity deal.

To be honest, the fact that this is cross-gen is probably the worst news I've heard about this so far.
 

Soulrak

Member
The game was already in production. It was already announced for all platforms.

I don't believe for a second that it wouldn't have happened without MIcrosoft.

No Mans Sky was never announced for Xbox only to be retracted at a later date. Bayonetta 2 was all but vaporware until Nintendo stepped in (and that didn't stop people from flipping out).

The issue everyone is taking here is that it was announced for all platforms officially at E3 and that support was basically retracted (though it's now clear that it's only temporary).


Your wrong though. It was NEVER announced for all platforms. Again, why do people keep saying this. Only speculation, nothing was ever made official.

I revert back to what I said, its not that it wouldnt have happened. But the fact still remains that Square was obviously not all in on developing a sequel if they let Microsoft step in. Square was not happy with sales of TR. What we could have gotten was a mishandled, underfunded game. Dont forget that Microsoft & CD both said that with this deal, they are making the best possible TR they can.
 

Sevyne

Member
I really think a huge amount of the backlash could have been avoided had they just said 'timed'. They say the gamescom stage wasn't the right place to go into detail, I'd say it was the ideal place to mention this. People would have still been pissed but they would have appreciated being told upfront what the deal entailed

The thing that pissed me off most about this was that ALL of the other timed exclusive games they announced they said "First on Xbox", it was only RotTR that they changed the wording. Why couldn't they have just said the same for TR if it was in fact timed like the other games? I think it's pretty clear that they really wanted us to believe this wasn't timed, but couldn't actually lie about it, so instead they made their message as confusing as possible. The backlash is because nobody was buying into that shady bullshit.
 
I don't think any sane poster here thinks that Microsoft is an evil company who wants to kill the industry. Why would they when they need the industry to make money. Most just see it as a company that has made some questionable decisions when it comes to the Xbox One. People here have made both reasonable and unreasonable arguments about why they hate, like or have no opinions about money hatting. Like Amirox said, if you looked back at the older threads people were criticising Sony as much way back when the PS3 was released.
People still criticize Sony when they fuck up, look at all the comments on the UI, or the stability update jokes, or not giving us suspend/resume, or the PS Now prices. Whenever Sony does something against consumers people will mention it as well.
 
Why exactly? It seems to me that designing the game to work on last generation machines will ultimately limit what they can do with it.

Because when you have one decent 360 port of ROTR, one decent Xbone port of ROTR, when you add them together, you get one amazing ROTR presence on XBOX which signals unprecedented partnership, an exciting new direction for the IP, and the best version on XBOX.
 

Soulrak

Member
People still criticize Sony when they fuck up, look at all the comments on the UI, or the stability update jokes, or not giving us suspend/resume, or the PS Now prices. Whenever Sony does something against consumers people will mention it as well.

Well thats good because the lack of updates is in fact a problem. And what used to be a nice & clean UI became a horrow show.
 

Soulrak

Member
A cross gen game is the best one they can make?

No.

Perhaps it is. Have you given a thought to what I said about Square possibly not properly funding a sequel?

The TR reboot was cross-gen & it was superb on all platforms. Obviously would be better if it was strictly next-gen, but what if that was a deal breaker for Square. If Square wasnt happy with sales the last go round, what makes you think they were gung-ho about cutting out an installment base to a limited one?
 
D

Deleted member 20920

Unconfirmed Member
People still criticize Sony when they fuck up, look at all the comments on the UI, or the stability update jokes, or not giving us suspend/resume, or the PS Now prices. Whenever Sony does something against consumers people will mention it as well.

Yup. We still have people making threads when Sony screws up. It's not like people here would go " I love Sony" when their PSN accounts get banned for no reason, when their DS4 breaks down or wear off way before they should or when their PS4 have problems authenticating digital games.

MS and SE really screwed up here with the way they handled the PR. They could have just said that the game is a timed exclusive outright or just do it the Bioshock way; say it's exclusive and have no comments about releasing on the other platforms. Not this weird word play with the whole holiday 2015 thing and not saying it's timed when it's timed and being dodgy about the game being on other platforms.
 

danthefan

Member
Perhaps it is. Have you given a thought to what I said about Square possibly not properly funding a sequel?

The TR reboot was cross-gen & it was superb on all platforms. Obviously would be better if it was strictly next-gen, but what if that was a deal breaker for Square. If Square wasnt happy with sales the last go round, what makes you think they were gung-ho about cutting out an installment base to a limited one?

What? I never said or implied anything about them cutting the install base. I have no idea why you're asking me that. Though it is exactly what they've done, making up the deficit with hats of MS money.
 
Why exactly? It seems to me that designing the game to work on last generation machines will ultimately limit what they can do with it.

We don't actually know what the plan is for the last gen version of RoTR. It could be similar to that of Titanfall and Horizon 2 where a different developer works on making the game for just the 360 and the main developer/team works on the X1 version.

So yeah, a little too early to claim that because it's on last gen it's limiting the current gen version in any way.
 

Steroyd

Member
it doesn't matter. some people run the narrative that Sony is good and MS is bad. there's a decent amount of people that genuinely think Sony is their friend. people are mad MS made this Tomb Raider deal, if Sony did this Gaf would've had a whole different reaction.

No it wouldn't.

I will say this though, Rise of Tomb Raider being a PS timed exclusive would make more sense business wise because, a)most sales are in Europe, b)Tomb Raider sells more on Playstation c)PS4 has the bigger userbase, it would also not be that blatantly obvious that moneyhats got thrown around, infact you could probably argue that an exclusive happened because Sony simply provided the right platform that suits the franchise (think JRPG's on PS3).

Would it be equally bullshit, yes.

And there's a reason why there's a general Sony good guy, MS bad guy mantra at the moment, MS fucks up and Sony makes the right moves.
 
MS and SE really screwed up here with the way they handled the PR. They could have just said that the game is a timed exclusive outright or just do it the Bioshock way; say it's exclusive and have no comments about releasing on the other platforms. Not this weird word play

I don't think all the outrage is over semantics of a pr announcement.
 
No it wouldn't.

I will say this though, Rise of Tomb Raider being a PS timed exclusive would make more sense business wise because, a)most sales are in Europe, b)Tomb Raider sells more on Playstation c)PS4 has the bigger userbase, it would also not be that blatantly obvious that moneyhats got thrown around, infact you could probably argue that an exclusive happened because Sony simply provided the right platform that suits the franchise (think JRPG's on PS3).

Would it be equally bullshit, yes.

And there's a reason why there's a general Sony good guy, MS bad guy mantra at the moment, MS fucks up and Sony makes the right moves.

Equally bullshit, but it's hard to deny the majority of people wouldn't argue exactly what you did above. It makes sense for it to be timed exclusive because it's a historically a PS franchise, of course they'd go exclusive with the console that has the biggest install rate, etc.

There'd be some anger, but the main narrative would be one of the the decision making sense. Seems silly to suggest there wouldn't be.
 

danthefan

Member
Equally bullshit, but it's hard to deny the majority of people wouldn't argue exactly what you did above. It makes sense for it to be timed exclusive because it's a historically a PS franchise, of course they'd go exclusive with the console that has the biggest install rate, etc.

There'd be some anger, but the main narrative would be one of the the decision making sense. Seems silly to suggest there wouldn't be.

None of this happened. Seems a bit silly to me to base any sort of argument or point on it.
 
I don't think any sane poster here thinks that Microsoft is an evil company who wants to kill the industry. Why would they when they need the industry to make money.

In the broader sense, Microsoft has always been a bit of an evil company. If you have lived through their history of dealing with competition or know who SCO is you will know what I'm talking about.

While I agree they are not necessarily being evil with the xbox, I would never make the mistake of thinking Microsoft is a company that makes and sells games. If it came down to keeping a competitor out of the living room, or protecting their OS business? They would burn the games industry to the fucking ground.

It has never been about making money. Microsoft has lots of ways to make a shitload of that. Games just help them protect their real businesses.

Never forget that.
 

Steroyd

Member
Equally bullshit, but it's hard to deny the majority of people wouldn't argue exactly what you did above. It makes sense for it to be timed exclusive because it's a historically a PS franchise, of course they'd go exclusive with the console that has the biggest install rate, etc.

There'd be some anger, but the main narrative would be one of the the decision making sense. Seems silly to suggest there wouldn't be.

Of course, this particular announcement is the perfect shitstorm of dodgy wording in PR, the business decision for the franchise being ass, hardware sales disparity, and the most blatant moneyhat ever, that the anger is directed in all different directions on multiple fronts, with added sprinkles of it being the majority.
 

dumbo

Member
Why didn’t Microsoft, Square Enix or Crystal Dynamics say upfront it was a timed exclusive? Why all the indirect language?
We certainly didn’t intend to cause any confusion with the announcement. The Microsoft Gamescom stage was a great place to make the initial announcement, but not necessarily to go into details

Ignoring the fact that there was absolutely no confusion - MS explicitly stated it was an exclusive on stage...

Surely a 'great place' to go into details was the statement released by SE/CD shortly after the conference, the statement which basically said that it was an exclusive?
 
Knowing it's coming to PS4 kind of makes the whole thing a pointless waste of money for MS, doesn't it?

There still no guarantee that its coming to the PS4, maybe on PC but we still don't know. Ryse and dead rising 3 had similar deals but they have yet too come out on the PS4.
 

nakedeyes

Banned
Sad thing is: X1 is the lamer / slightly weaker console. The first Tomb Raider ( reboot ) ran better on PS4 notably. You would be kidding yourself to think they aren't already working on the PS4 version of RotTR, so my guess: although it comes out "exclusively to the xbox during holiday 2015" (*gag* at that wording for realz.. ).. this really is just giving CD more time to make the PS4 version even more awesome!!

Full disclosure: I own both consoles ( and a PC that could blow them both away for graphic fidelity )... This is all just non-biased third party opinion.. love you Tomb GAF!
 

nakedeyes

Banned
There still no guarantee that its coming to the PS4, maybe on PC but we still don't know. Ryse and dead rising 3 had similar deals but they have yet too come out on the PS4.

no GUARANTEE.. but I will personally bet you 100$ USD that it will.. ( PM me if you want to!! ) You are kidding yourself if you think it won't come to PS4. Especially with this hilarious exclusivity wording.
 
no GUARANTEE.. but I will personally bet you 100$ USD that it will.. ( PM me if you want to!! ) You are kidding yourself if you think it won't come to PS4. Especially with this hilarious exclusivity wording.

I won't be betting on anything, the best that could happen is for the game to release at least year or two after the XO version. ms didn't blow all that money just for a few months of exclusivity now wouldn't they?
 

Cels

Member
another 500 posts in this thread oh man

i mean people can argue forever that the game wouldn't have been made without microsoft's help but no one really knows that for sure, barring some "final hours of rise of the tomb raider" style reveal like titanfall that definitively settled that yes, titanfall would have been canceled if microsoft hadn't stepped in and helped with it.

having said that i'm in the camp that believes that it was just a plain moneyhat, that the game was going to get made anyway. maybe the game will be better for it, maybe not, hard to say. all we really know is that square enix decided to take this deal, thinking that the extra money/marketing/development help was worth the loss of sales from a delayed release on PS3/PS4/PC
 

DOWN

Banned
I won't be betting on anything, the best that could happen is for the game to release at least year or two after the XO version. ms didn't blow all that money just for a few months of exclusivity now wouldn't they?

Agreed, sadly. I don't see this even announcing for other platforms before it's been out for 6 months. After that, it's at least 3-6 months before release.
 
Your wrong though. It was NEVER announced for all platforms. Again, why do people keep saying this. Only speculation, nothing was ever made official.

I revert back to what I said, its not that it wouldnt have happened. But the fact still remains that Square was obviously not all in on developing a sequel if they let Microsoft step in. Square was not happy with sales of TR. What we could have gotten was a mishandled, underfunded game. Dont forget that Microsoft & CD both said that with this deal, they are making the best possible TR they can.
Yeah well, they say a lot of things.

Also if SE isn't happy with almost 7 million sales, they're out of their gourds. I wouldn't be surprised if this new game doesn't even do that, after all this controversy.
 

mao2

Member
no GUARANTEE.. but I will personally bet you 100$ USD that it will.. ( PM me if you want to!! ) You are kidding yourself if you think it won't come to PS4. Especially with this hilarious exclusivity wording.
Remember how Titanfall was supposedly timed exclusive until Microsoft decided to pay for full exclusivity? It could happen again here.
 

DOWN

Banned
Do we know how much this cost them? Unless it was a particularly obscene amount I wouldn't be surprised if the exclusivity period was only about 6 months.

Cost to buy exclusivity of one of the biggest gaming franchises around, especially one that is proven as a multiplatform title? And on the platforms where less of the fanbase is at?

You can bet they paid big to cover whatever units are lost by not launching on PS4 and PC where it would have had millions more customers to sell it to.
 

Ovek

7Member7
I still think the timed window for the Xbone and 360 (lol) is short, like the PS4/PC version will come out just after Christmas short. It must be the reason Crystal and Microsoft refuse to discuss the deal or are super vague about it. If the deal was any longer Microsoft would have advertised it as a big win against Sony.

Also the reaction to this deal must have hit home hard for them to put up a FAQ covering the deal regardless of the nonexistent content.
 
MS wants to sell extra xboxes in the holiday season. After that it's not longer a big deal i think. Ps4, pc and ps3 installbase is so big that CD has nothing to worry about (except for bad reviews). Couple of months of exclusivity i think. But it's important that the duration isn't known, since people need to feel an extra urge to buy a xboxone this holiday.
 
Gotcha, but heres my question & you kind of made my point. You are making it sound as if Microsoft did in fact do what your saying. And on the other hand making Sony look like a church choir. How do you know that Microsoft didnt go to Square & say the same thing?? Look we will help fund the game in exchange for some exclusiveness. And the end result is what we got. Its not like Microsoft made Square do it. They obviously offered something & Square took it because it made sense to them. I just think we may be painting one out to be something its totally not without any inside information. But automatically assume when Sony does it, its ethical & innocent.

But is there an example of Sony doing it?
As a primarily PC gamer, I would still be just as pissed and think it was just as shady... well, if I cared about the game on PC like I did with RotTR... well, I'd think it was shady still, but I wouldn't be as aggravated about it.

You're right, I don't know who approached who... but I don't really care either way, it's the actual agreement that infuriates me and I'm pissed at both parties for entering into it.

I still think it's a lot like a movie theater where customers are waiting in line (gamers of all platforms) and some dude (MS) walks in, circumvents the line, starts talking up the manager (SE), eventually handing him a briefcase FULL of money. The manager then comes over and says, I'm sorry, but we will not be able to allow all of you to see the film tonight, that gentleman has bought out all the seats. And at this point, the guy (MS) just starts picking out people he knows/likes/whatever (Xbox customers) to go in. And even if he doesn't have enough people to fill all the seats, he still says "No, I'm not allowing anyone I didn't choose in here... well, okay, sure, you can come in, but you have to pay me $$$ for the seat and be my new friend." And this repeats for the next few weeks until the film is no longer showing at your local theatre (timed exclusivity).

The analogy continues to work for me on the level that I believe that if someone did this, that there would be increased piracy of the movie online via torrent sites and the like (PC version once it exists/leaked) as well as a drop in the overall success of the movie if extrapolated over a large enough population because there were not enough people interested in the film (RotTR) to pony up whatever to get in via the dude's rules (MS) and by the time the film is released on other avenues (streaming, physical retail, dollar theatre, etc.) a large number of the people who were in line to see it when it came out have lost interest and are now captivated by some other entertainment.
 
Do we know how much this cost them? Unless it was a particularly obscene amount I wouldn't be surprised if the exclusivity period was only about 6 months.

Unless CD and SE are run by bunch of retards I don't see how this deal could have been done without tons of cash(literally).
 
Has anyone thought of the possibility that if Microsoft didnt step in & help fund the project, that this game would have never been made? Or the possibility that if Sony had the opportunity, that they would do the same thing? Would that make it OK then? Didnt Sony basically do the same with No Mans Sky? I didnt see this uproar from the gaming community about that. And that game quickly became the biggest trendy hit everyone was waiting for since its reveal.

What annoys me a tad, is that people are jumping down Microsofts throat way too often nowadays & turning everything they do into drawn out twisted drama. Do I like the fact that its exclusive (timed) to one console. Quite frankly, that doesnt matter to me, I have all the consoles so I can choose to play it regardless. For those that only have a PS4, or an XB1 or a Wii U, thats the chance you take with pledging allegiance to one company or one machine. These things are an investment. And during that cycle, things have & will change during its course. Gaming media, forums, all naysayers need to give it a rest already. It may be taboo to say this around here, but all these consoles are awesome to me. And all these companies are trying everything they can to retain or earn your interest.

I'm going to need a bigger bug jar for this poe.
 

PhatSaqs

Banned
lol this exclusive shit has been argued for YEARS and people still dont get it. Hell I remember some document being leaked back in 07 or so that outlined MS marketing terms for "platform exclusive" and such that said they use exclusive if its 6 months or more.
 

DOWN

Banned
I'm sure whatever sales they lose on PC/PS4 they'll more than make up with a good 360 version. Dat install base.

Sales have cratered already in dat install base. And remember, release is over year from now. Current gen copies are already outselling last gen copies. Trying to get sales on 360 when there's Black Friday sales for 2 year old current gen isn't a great plan.
 

Steroyd

Member
Also the reaction to this deal must have hit home hard for them to put up a FAQ covering the deal regardless of the nonexistent content.

It didn't hit home hard, they braced for impact when they released that Tomb Raider blog spiel with what felt like minutes after the reveal. I bet they knew exactly the reaction they were going to get.
 

Nzyme32

Member
Ignoring the fact that there was absolutely no confusion - MS explicitly stated it was an exclusive on stage...

Surely a 'great place' to go into details was the statement released by SE/CD shortly after the conference, the statement which basically said that it was an exclusive?

Not quite. It has been like every other timed exclusive, in that they push hard to word it in a way that obfuscates the nature of the exclusivity while using the buzzwords exclusive or exclusively.

What MS did was push the wording to an extreme where it was harder to discern the details. I still thought it was suspiciously worded and naturally that sets off the timed exclusive or exclusive content alarm. Mentioning specifically holiday 2014 just seems to make it clear that the game would not appear on other systems till 2015 at some point. Basically, having the statement be a whole sentence with a comma rather than two separate ones made it seems suspicious enough to me for me to think it wasn't entirely exclusive. I think it was a particularly obnoxious move by whoever decided on the wording as it is clearly made to obfuscate the nature of the exclusivity. They wanted to make as much noise about this as possible, but probably not so much about it being timed
 

EGM1966

Member
1 : I'm glad this got called out as a shit announcement. Last gen had too many timed deals (both sides) where the fact it was timed was hidden. I hope the negative PR here helps ensure this gen the customer is always informed and timed deals are announced as "first on" or something similar.

2 : Seems MS with SE collusion wanted to deliberately deceive here which I don't like. They went out of their way to dream up wording to imply it was fully exclusive and coming to XB1. Their choice but a poor one for consumers and not something that wins then any favours from me. Again glad it backfired.

3 : SE need better PR folks. They're still way too fluffy and they're still trying to pretend it all about customers which is crap. They saw a way to get paid (because I believe this is full out deal for exclusivity not anything to do with funding the game) extra by MS, avoid Uncharted and it meant making the majority of franchise customers (from TR2013 to which this is the sequel) wait. That's not looking after your customers or putting them first; that's taking money to prioritize a minority of customers first over the majority. Not good and unnecessary IMHO. I'd like to see SE raked over the coals further and I've not doubt they will.


I don't blame MS for offering the deal just trying to deceive with the announcement but I think SE made a poor deal that ignored the interests of a majority of their customers and their language trying to state otherwise is fairly obnoxious to read.

I still think the deal isn't going to benefit either MS or SE much and with the backlash I'm hoping it makes companies much more wary of making such deals.

I guess this won't go TitanFall route now. Toouch had been said and SE have confirmed timed : they would get crucified if they took a second pament to go full exclusive.

Seems obvious now they wanted holiday 2015 launch but didn't want to clash with Uncharted and thought MS offer was a clever way to have their cake and eat it : would have been too if the pair of them announced it right.
 

daninthemix

Member
Not quite. It has been like every other timed exclusive, in that they push hard to word it in a way that obfuscates the nature of the exclusivity while using the buzzwords exclusive or exclusively.

The obfuscation seems needlessly baffling. The game isn't coming out for another 16 months - by that point, surely it would've been apparent whether someone needs an XB1 to play it or not. The announcement cageyness simply portrays an untrustworthy, shifty company.
 
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