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Phil Spencer: MS will spend money on marketing and developing Rise of the Tomb Raider

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“Right now we have a relationship with Square and Crystal on publishing the game,” Spencer confirmed. “The exact details of what publishing means and when it gets done are part of that deal - I’m not trying to be opaque about it. We will clearly spend money on marketing the game, there’s no doubt about that. And we do [that] on games where we have very little to do with development, and with games that we fully develop. And we will definitely be spending money on developing the game - I want to make sure that it’s as great as it can be.”

http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2014/08/13/xboxs-phil-spencer-responds-tomb-raider-exclusivity-questions
 
So... Fully exclusive...?

"Similar 2 what we did on Dead Rising," so maybe a PC version ~6 months later?

EDIT: unless he's talking about the first Dead Rising which only ever got a Wii version a long time later (could be forgetting a port or two).
 

fantomena

Member
Getting the PC-version as soon as it comes out. Still think this deal was a PR clusterfuck and bullshit.

I generally dislike timed exlusives on AAA games.

Indie times exclusives Im okay with as far as the dev get's something good out of it. For example it seems like the dev of Thomas Was Alone/Volume and Hello Games (No Man's Sky) received lots of free marketing from Sony.
 

gcubed

Member
I'm not sure MS can be any worse at communication then they already are.


All this is going to do is cause another clusterfuck and make them come out and say "we would be glad to, but they dont want to"
 

Barzul

Member
I wonder how long this deal has been in the offing. It seems most people have come to the conclusion that it was a relatively new development. Has there been any conclusive word on this?
 

nib95

Banned
Wish he'd just be straight and open about it. Still sounds to me like they're obfuscating to refrain from admitting it's only a timed exclusive. Presumably they've paid a pretty penny for it and want to make it count.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Man if this is the case SquareEnix is literally the king of all moronic businesses lol

oh man this is so awesome. Please be true, please be true *fingers crossed*
 
Well it was nice of MS 2013 to come back for a visit with their mixed messaging abilities.

It's exclusive.
It's timed exclusive.
It's exclusive...?
 
I propose another reason that both parties seem to be so unclear about this. A deal is still being worked out. Square isnt as stupid as people think. I imagine that if ROTR doesn't hit a certain milestone of sales, even if originally fully exclusive, it gives square the option to publish on different platforms earlier.

Also, it could also be a timed exclusive with a Microsoft stipulation that other platforms cant even be mentioned until a 6 month period has past :- ie the bulk of sales have dried up.

Im pretty confident that this game will at least hit PC by the summer of 2016. It may take a bit longer for playstation platforms.
 

Percy

Banned
Similar to what they did with Dead Rising except, apparently, for the part where they funded it and published it. So not so similar at all beyond the hat.

This is so confusing.
This shouldn't be so confusing.

They would probably consider that a mission accomplished then.
 

Toki767

Member
What does co-publishing even mean? They published Dead Rising 3. Unless they mean they're only willing to publish the Xbox versions and Square Enix will have to publish the PS4/PC version themselves.
 
If they are publishing as they did with dead rising then the game likely wouldn't have existed otherwise.

Sounds like their doing everyone a solid. With out a doubt will come to PS4 & PC eventually.


SE did complain a ton about missing sales milestones last year. When 2k did that with BD infinite they shut the team down after selling millions.


Also last time MS and a publisher were obtuse about a release like this TF went exclusive. So maybe they are doing that eventually too.
 

Chobel

Member
Co-publishing? So that means they're also getting part of SE profits plus platform royalty, How did SE fuck this up?
 

Daemul

Member
So what I get from this is that their co-marketing and co-developing the game? Is that right?

If so, then this will never see the light of day on Playstation, but I can see it coming on PC like DR3.
 

SEGAvangelist

Gold Member
I wonder which end is holding up all the confusion... SE? MS? CD?

Wasn't it just announced SE was publisher? And now MS is? Wish someone would clear this up. Maybe they should have waited a bit longer to announce this.
 

StoopKid

Member
If they are publishing as they did with dead rising then the game likely wouldn't have existed otherwise.

Sounds like their doing everyone a solid. With out a doubt will come to PS4 & PC eventually.


SE did complain a ton about missing sales milestones last year. When 2k did that with BD infinite they shut the team down after selling millions.

Does anybody really believe that ?
 

Barzul

Member
I propose another reason that both parties seem to be so unclear about this. A deal is still being worked out. Square isnt as stupid as people think. I imagine that if ROTR doesn't hit a certain milestone of sales, even if originally fully exclusive, it gives square the option to publish on different platforms earlier.

Also, it could also be a timed exclusive with a Microsoft stipulation that other platforms cant even be mentioned until a 6 month period has past :- ie the bulk of sales have dried up.

Im pretty confident that this game will at least hit PC by the summer of 2016. It may take a bit longer for playstation platforms.

This makes a lot of sense. The earlier rumors for Titanfall were that it was timed until MS bought full exclusivity for it.
 

Amir0x

Banned
If they are publishing as they did with dead rising then the game likely wouldn't have existed otherwise.

Sounds like their doing everyone a solid. With out a doubt will come to PS4 & PC eventually.


SE did complain a ton about missing sales milestones last year. When 2k did that with BD infinite they shut the team down after selling millions.

Kagari already confirmed SquareEnix did not need any money for this game to come out; it was already going to come out before any of this.

This is all just hilarious gravy right now.
 

jackdoe

Member
Lol. The next shareholder conference for Square Enix should be highly amusing. I'm assuming that these timed exclusive/exclusive deals don't translate into direct revenue and thus don't really impact quarterly earnings?
 

Cj01

Member
I'm not to familiar with contracts, but I really don't think MSFT is trying to lie or be as shady as everyone thinks. I'm sure there is something in the contract that is preventing them to talk because certain details are not sure. Maybe its like titanfall were things are just undecided right now about how exclusive it really is.
 

Sevyne

Member
You'd think they would've said this out of the gate instead of giving obfuscating answers.

This still is a pretty unclear response though. They just keep dancing around words here. It just keeps becoming more and more confusing the more they speak.
 
Is it so difficult to just answer the question? Doesn't this actually hurt them more than avoiding it?

the lack of a direct answer clearly points to timed exclusivity. there's no other reason to be vague about it.

though there is always the possibility that, given the backlash, they will throw more money at it like they did with titanfall, and make it a straight-up exclusive after the fact
 
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