It is now confirmed that the "Rise of the Tomb Raider" will launch in Sony's Playstation 4 in November 2016. According to pcadvisor.com, the game's announcement that it would be initially exclusive on Xbox and Microsoft caused an outrage among fans.
"Since its origins in 1996, 'Tomb Raider' has been a multi-platform franchise with fans all over the world playing on diverse systems and devices," fans stated on a Change.org petition. "The recent decision to release the upcoming 'Rise of the Tomb Raider' as an Xbox One exclusive alienates the majority of the fan base and will ultimately lead to the demise of the franchise."
Different protests and display of outrage was created after the announcement. As per eurogamer.com. Xbox executive Phil Spencer defended the exclusivity agreement.
"I don't know that it's been a surprise," he said about the fan outrage. "I knew we were going to have to talk about the whole story. And you don't get to do that on stage. On stage you have your moment, with Darrell [Gallagher, head of Crystal Dynamics] there, we're talking about the franchise, what it means, how excited we are for the next release and that it's coming to Xbox exclusively. That's an important point for us."
"But if you rewind, we started our relationship on this franchise before this release," he added. "They've been on our stage at E3 for a few years now. Obviously, it's a franchise that has lived for longer than Xbox. It's lived on other platforms. So the relationship has been built over time."
"The one thing people have to know, it wasn't a situation where we looked at a third-party space and just all of a sudden targeted a certain game and said, 'we need to go get that game.' It's a relationship we've built. If you read Crystal Dynamics' blog post, it talks about the relationship we've built."
