New Tomb Raider On Xbox To Be Published By Microsoft
At this year’s gamescom, Microsoft seemingly seemed to drop a bombshell in announcing the next Tomb Raider exclusive to the Xbox One. Then, it turned out that it would be a holiday 2015 exclusive, in timing only. Now, in reaction to Sony and the PS4’s get of Street Fighter V as a console exclusive (with PC), head of Xbox Marketing Aaron Greenberg has “revealed” that the newest Lara Croft title, “Rise of the Tomb Raider,” will be published by Microsoft.
@diosmekemeke Yes we are publishing Rise of the Tomb Raider.
— Aaron Greenberg 🙅🏼♂️💚U (@aarongreenberg) December 8, 2014
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Eurogamer has followed up with Square Enix, who confirm the story, albeit with an important caveat. “Yes, Microsoft will be publishing Rise of the Tomb Raider on Xbox,” the representative states. “Microsoft has always seen huge potential in Tomb Raider and they will get behind this game with more support across development, marketing and retail than ever before, which we believe will be a step in continuing to build the Tomb Raider franchise as one of the biggest in gaming.”
Note that the representative says that Microsoft will be publishing Rise of the Tomb Raider “on Xbox.” With a timed exclusivity confirmed, and Square Enix free to release their game after their deal with Microsoft has elapsed, it’s clear that, really, nothing new has been announced. We already knew that Microsoft would be working with Square Enix to help market and distribute the game for their launch. However, there’s no way that a possible PS4-released Rise of the Tomb Raider will be published in the same way by Microsoft.
It’s the same kind of hackneyed PR talk from Microsoft that is so frustrating to Xbox One owners. It came up during Microsoft’s latest Xbox One sales numbers report, as in previous NPD reports, and now in tweets by officials. The Xbox One is a solid console with great exclusives, regardless of being timed or just for consoles. The fact that the handling of Rise of the Tomb Raider’s Microsoft deal has to be worded in a way to imply something much larger than what it is proves to be quite disappointing.
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