Much has already been written about Rise of the Tomb Raider becoming a timed exclusive on Xbox One. While exclusives or timed exclusives are nothing new to the industry, what made this matter a bit more surprising was that the last iteration of the game which was a reboot of Lara Craft was already multi-platform and rarely do multi-platform games go exclusive unless the studio is purchased by one of the console makers. In fact if you look at global sales of Tomb Raider from 2013, you can see the shocking difference between PlayStation and Xbox owners who purchased the game.

• PS3 – 2.22 Million
• 360 – 1.71 Million
• PS4 – 0.46 million
• Xbox One – .17

Looking at these numbers, it’s still a head scratcher that Square Enix decided to offer Rise of the Tomb Raider as a timed exclusive on Xbox One but that’s what a truck load of money will do. However, there seems to be another reason that Microsoft wanted the latest Lara Croft adventure on Xbox One and it has nothing to do with snubbing PS4 fans and more to do with fear of Uncharted 4.

Speaking to Eurogamer at GamesCom, Xbox boss head Phil Spencer:

 Totally. I’m a big fan of Uncharted and I wish we had an action adventure game of that ilk. We’ve started some, and we’ve looked at them. But we don’t have one today of that quality. This is an opportunity. 

For better or worse, Microsoft is fully realizing the depth and quality of AAA titles that Sony’s first party studios offer. In fact, I say the only reason the PS3 was able to withstand the Xbox 360 despite the difference in money Microsoft was able to pump into the division is due to the array of amazing games like Uncharted. With the PS4 easily sailing past the Xbox One by having reached 10 million units sold, Microsoft has both momentum and great games going against it and one way to fight that back is to counter with a game like Rise of the Tomb Raider. Here is Phil Spencer again:

 I knew there would be some push back when we came out. Certain people won’t believe this: it doesn’t come from an evil space. It comes from a space where there’s an opportunity that maps really well with what we need in terms of the genre, and a partner that’s looking for a partnership. Other people can do the deal, but it was a deal that fit well with us. And I think it could help the franchise in the long run and help Crystal and Square and us.

So, I’m happy with the partnership. But I knew there would be… there are two sides: you’ve got the Xbox guys – I hope the Xbox guys are happy we have another game coming to Xbox they can play. But I don’t want anybody to be happy that somebody else isn’t playing the game. I don’t look at the war that way. I just want gaming on Xbox to be great. I’m not trying to push gaming down on any other platform. Clearly, I’m not going to invest in something to make games great on other platforms. Windows stuff I will. But not on stuff on other consoles. That’s 101. This wasn’t an attack against anybody else. It was an opportunity that came up for us that fit really well. 

Not having played a Tomb Raider game since the PS1 era where you were still shooting wolves and other creatures, I’m not sure what Tomb Raider has to offer to Microsoft. While I’m fully aware of the changes the franchise has gone since that time and that the latest reboot was a crowd pleaser with gamers, the sales number still don’t match up to the juggernaut that is Uncharted. Having said that, we’ve yet to see anything from either game so maybe Uncharted 4 pans out as the worst outing of the franchise and Rise of the Tomb Raider turns into the next Uncharted 2. Then again, maybe this is Microsoft doing their usual tactic of throwing money at a problem that doesn’t need more money. By the way, did you hear how now that he’s out of the CEO chair at Microsoft, Ballmer is also stepping down  from the Microsoft board? During his outings, at how many problems did MS throw a truckload of money at and where did it get them?

Discuss:

Do you think Rise of the Tomb Raider can really answer Uncharted 4?

[Via EuroGamer]