‘Rise Of The Tomb Raider’ Xbox Exclusivity Not Evil Says Xbox Head Phil Spencer

Having Rise of the Tomb Raider Xbox exclusivity is not evil says Xbox head Phil Spencer. Speaking to Eurogamer in an interview Phil Spencer speaks to the outlet to assure gamers that the deal “doesn’t come from an evil space.”

The story of Rise of the Tomb Raider as a timed exclusive for Microsoft’s Xbox platform dominated the news cycle on major gaming sites, podcasts and Twitch streams after Phil Spencer made the announcement at Gamescom. Many die hard fans, or “fanboys”, of the PlayStation platform were the loudest and with good reason especially that Microsoft has not given any details as to the length of the exclusivity as of this writing. Inquisitr’s Scott Grill even covered the start of an online petition, futile though it is, to bring and end to the exclusivity deal. The situation has been addressed by analysts and writers on both a pro and con view point, but few people have been as direct about it as Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox at Microsoft who is proving to be a much more straight forward speaker than his predecessor Don Matrick.

The latest interview with Spencer came with Eurogamer in which Spencer admits he understands the frustration from PlayStation fans.

“I get the reaction I see. If I’m a PlayStation person all of a sudden I feel like, the franchise has gone. I didn’t buy the IP. I didn’t buy the studio. It’s not mine. Where this thing will go over time, just like Dead Rising or Ryse, we’ll see what happens with the game. I don’t own every iteration of Tomb Raider.”

When asked how long the exclusivity will last, Spencer replied:

“No. It’s not because I’m trying to be a headfake on anybody. It’s a deal between us and the partner. People ask me how much did we pay. There are certain things I’m just not going to talk about because it’s a business deal between us and them. Obviously the deal does have a duration. I didn’t buy the IP in perpetuity.”

Phil Spencer went onto say that the Rise of the Tomb Raider Xbox exclusivity is not evil in a reaction piece, also from Eurogamer.

“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.”

The situation with Rise of the Tomb Raider being an exclusive for Xbox is an odd one, especially considering where we are in the current console space. With the first anniversary of the next-gen consoles on the horizon, Sony is leading the pack with 10M PlayStation 4 units sold through to consumers with the Xbox One lagging behind. With a rebranded Xbox One on the market and Phil Spencer evangelizing the console to the masses as a “Games First” console, he has a tough road ahead of him to close the gap. Buying an IP or timed exclusive is nothing new to the Xbox platform when you look back at the history of the console.

Halo was a purchased IP from a small developer of first person shooters for the Mac. The small studio, Bungie, had finished their Marathon series and were deep into development of Halo which they showed at the Apple Developers Conference upon which Microsoft quickly purchased the IP and developer. The result was the title that became synonymous with Xbox, Halo: Combat Evolved. Other titles that Microsoft purchased included Gears of War, Crackdown as well as the developer Rare, who had been a 2nd party Nintendo studio until their acquisition. And let us not forget the timed exclusive of Grand Theft Auto IV DLC that saw the expanded stories arrive a full year late on PlayStation.

Looking back at the Rise of the Tomb Raider exclusivity on Xbox, it makes sense from a business stand point. As Ben Kuchera from Polygon pointed out, the job of publisher Square-Enix is to obtain the maximum profit for the game which does not always mean the most sales. Benefits such as lower royalty payments, premium store placement and development investment are all things that can help Square-Enix mitigate the cost of an expensive title. As Phil Spencer said, this is not coming from an “evil place” but from a desire to make Xbox better which he summed up succinctly:

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.

Image Source | Square-Enix