14 DAY TRIAL // During Microsoft's Gamescom 2014 press conference event last week, the Redmond-based corporation announced one of the aces up their sleeve in the ongoing console war, in the form of an Xbox exclusivity deal for Rise of the Tomb Raider for the 2014 Holiday season.
Speaking to Eurogamer, Sony Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida admits to being completely surprised by Microsoft's announcement, especially when taking into account the fact that, when publisher Square Enix announced the upcoming action adventure game at E3 2014, it suggested that the title would arrive on PC and PlayStation 4, in addition to the Xbox One console.
"I was like, ah yeah, they're going deeper into the games already announced, you know, same kind of lineup, until they talked about Tomb Raider being exclusive. It's very interesting the way Phil Spencer said, what we are saying is, in holiday 2015 Tomb Raider is exclusive to Xbox. So it's open to interpretation. But still, we didn't anticipate something like this would happen," Yoshida states.
Since then, the waters cleared and it was revealed that Rise of the Tomb Raider's Xbox One and Xbox 360 exclusivity deal would only be of a temporary nature, and the game would eventually make its way to other platforms later on, in 2016.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is currently scheduled to launch during the Holiday 2015 season, for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One platforms. According to Phil Spencer, the game is set up to be a direct competitor to Sony's very own PlayStation 4 exclusive action adventure video game, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, which is also slated for a late 2015 release.
The only difference point is that, unlike Uncharted, which is being developed and published by a first-party studio, publisher Square Enix and developer Crystal Dynamics are free to do anything they wish with their IP after the timed exclusivity deal expires, and so the game will most likely also make its way to Sony's platform.
One of Sony's heavy hitters for this Holiday season used to be The Order 1886, which unfortunately got pushed back to February 2015. The game is a unique blend of cinematics and action, and is meant to take full advantage of the hardware capabilities of the PlayStation 4 platform.
While the Xbox One has its fair share of exclusives, the most prominent of which are the upcoming Sunset Overdrive and Halo 5: Guardians, both Ryse: Son of Rome, one of the device's starting lineup titles, and the upcoming Rise of the Tomb Raider will also make their way to other platforms.