'Rise of the Tomb Raider' just a timed exclusive to Xbox One?

The biggest reveal at Gamescom was the announcement of Rise of Tomb Raider coming exclusively to the Xbox One during the 2015 holiday season. But is it really going to be real exclusive, or a timed exclusive?

Twinfinite author Garrett Gault discusses why it's going to be the latter. While Titanfall was the exception to the rule, Gault believes that third party companies are foolish not to release their products on multiple platforms. In the same vein to Mass Effect, we will see the sequel to the Tomb Raider reboot on PlayStation 4 in some form.

In many cases we will see the first game in a franchise be exclusive to one platform, only for the success of that first game to lead the third party publisher to expand to as many places as possible to make the most capital they can.  One of the biggest franchises in recent memory that saw a shift similar to this was Mass Effect. The first two entries of the trilogy were Microsoft exclusives (the first debuting only for 360, with the second debuting for Windows and 360), only for the third game to release simultaneously on PS3, 360, and PC, along with a retroactive re-release of the first two games in a collection of the entire series for multiple platforms.

While Square Enix is going a different route with Tomb Raider, it doesn't matter. Eventually whatever money Microsoft paid for exclusivity won't matter once the contract is up.

This can only mean that Microsoft offered them a serious amount of money, but I still think that, whatever contract has been drawn between Microsoft and Square Enix, that contract will eventually expire. When that happens, expect Square Enix to reopen the series to multiple platforms, assuming Rise of the Tomb Raidermaintain’s the quality of the 2013 reboot. 

The article is completely spot on. Square Enix is the same company that throws in a bunch of money to their games, and when their games sell millions of copies they still consider it a failure. There's such a high benchmark that Square Enix places on their games and there's no way, reasonably, that it can reach its goal. Over four million copies and the game is a failure? Really?

In the same token, Square Enix isn't abandoning the Tomb Raider franchise on PlayStation. The reboot roughly sold half a million copies more on PS3 and obviously the franchise's main games have been featured on PlayStaton hardware.

Square Enix, the same guys who said the 4 million plus reboot of the franchise was a failure is going to completely abandon hardware that can give them at least two million more copies through the door? Forget it. Microsoft just ponied up because its their alternate tactic to compete with Sony.

Gamers are now faced with a decision. Either get the Xbox One to get the game immediately, or stick to plucking away at your backlog of video games and play it on your PS4 in about a year.

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