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Phil Spencer: MS will spend money on marketing and developing Rise of the Tomb Raider

There is a silver lining amidst this nightmare. Third party publishers are watching this whole ordeal unfold closely and will think hard about going to bed with Microsoft/Sony.
 
Relax. Read:



Released the same day (2 days ago) as the article referenced in this thread. Took less than 5 seconds to search and find that article. It's not pretty and packaged like the statement you want, but in less than 500 words it says the same thing, making it clear that it's a timed deal. There is absolutely no confusion.

Next time don't rely on GAF for the news. Go find some media outlets you trust and get informed.

An this post literally destroyed most of this thread lol
 
They're an insignificant number for a game of this size. And the hardest of the hardcore fans of the series are going to buy the game regardless. MS is betting that they'll do so on an XBO...

The hardest of the hardcore are PC gamers from the mid 90's... Microsoft is way way off if they think that's happening.
 
But (like 99.99%) MS are the ones who proposed the deal, they knew SE will be fucking PC/PS user and they didn't care... they payed them to fuck PC/PS users. Probably SE didn't even think of doing that until MS proposed the deal.

-----------------------------

About the witness, Blow hates MS.
What?

MS aren't in the business of ensuring Playstation owners are properly looked after. Even if MS approached SE/CD with the worst intentions of rival fuckery, twiddling their mustaches and laughing maniacally, your point would be irrelevant.

They cut deals to help themselves and their customers. If a bunch of PS4 owners not interested in an Xbox get pissed of in the process, what concern is that to MS?

If anybody has an obligation to other platforms it's SE/CD. If they chose to make a deal it's because they feel it's worthwhile. Doesn't matter if MS planted the idea in their heads -- they're entitled to try -- the IP owners signed an agreement they were perfectly capable of turning down.
 
No it's not. In what alternate reality are







Is the same as



The former is purposefully verbose and non committal to the point the reader is unsure of anything. Furthermore it is worded in such a way to cleverly trick readers that night not be as well informed by implying equivocation with series that are XB1/PC only and MS published. He even drops an exceedingly vague comment about MS publishing the game which if true would be a really big ticking deal but he shies away from outright saying that instead hints at it.

The later is two sentences and tells the reader everything they need/want to know without any of the former's misleading wording or phrasing. They are not even remotely the same.

MS has a big PR problem and the way Phil Spencer is answering the questions people are asking is portraying both him and the company as one if two things

  1. Sleazy: banking on he idea that their customers are too stupid to see through their cleverly and deceitfully worded BS
  2. Incompetent: woefully uninformed. make deals with publishers and have no idea what the fine print is and are this unable to clarify the situation
So pick one. Which is it? Because until the stop with this absurd messaging this is how exactly how the customer base will see them.

It's clear deception is part of Microsoft's plan (whether we can see through it or not).
 
Yes because their are no new IP's coming to the xbox. Nope Scalebound doesn't exist, nor does Quantum Break. Figments of the imagination clearly. I know you guys are "mad" about this whole timed exclusive for this one game, but quit with the "they could have been spending money on new IPs" bullshit please? They clearly are doing just that.

For me, as I can only speak for myself, I said something of the sort.

I wish they did more of that.

Sunset Overdrive and Scalebound is what I'm looking forward to, those steps are what I want to see from MS as I don't see Xbox as anything more than a Public relations box(and once a shitty spy equipment for MS) and MS not really wanting Xbox to do anything different than the 100% sure things to make money.

Think Xbox is better of taking Nintendo's stance atm. Well trained suits with a PR guy standing in their shadow ready to whisper instructions in their ears instead of "people" :/
 
Is so weird that they are using the Spencer interview as source.

Looks like that they are not allowed to talk about it.

It's pretty clever. CD is obviously not allowed to directly make a statement on the specifics of the exclusivity agreement, but Spencer's "duration" statement essentially opened the door for CD to indirectly confirm it by saying that Spencer "confirmed that the exclusivity is timed." Had Spencer/Microsoft not said anything (or said something like "the terms are confidential"), I have to imagine we'd still be in the dark.
 
Why do Microsoft have to justify their business dealing to a bunch of lameass gamers on a forum?

bBwsrze.gif
 
That's actually the point. There are multiple elements to this saga over the past few days, some times it's clearer than other times, other times it's buried in mud, sometimes it's all mixed together... clear in some parts of an article, unclear it yet others.

This is called obfuscation. It is the very reason we on NeoGAF - a very well informed segment of the gaming community - keeps having a billion threads on this subject.
But isn't it also obfuscation to omit parts of an interview that give the bigger picture? I mean, there is a lot to be mad about this deal, but trying to mix and match quotes goes against trying to make it clearer to the gaming community.
 
Yes because their are no new IP's coming to the xbox. Nope Scalebound doesn't exist, nor does Quantum Break. Figments of the imagination clearly. I know you guys are "mad" about this whole timed exclusive for this one game, but quit with the "they could have been spending money on new IPs" bullshit please? They clearly are doing just that.

Investing in their own studios is what I think most people mean when they say this.
 
Buying a game currently in development, from their first party studios? What?

They don't buy a game from their first party developers, everything created is already theirs, they own the whole studio, they decide whether games go past the pre-production stage they don't have to buy them. Otherwise as seen with Quantic Dream and Thatgamecompany, they sign prior contracts of so many games that Sony will fund, they then make those games, after which they are free to do as they like.

We know what is going on with pretty much every Sony exclusive to time-exclusive game, they either own the studio, have a contract, or as seen on the Indie side just offer better reasons to launch on PS4 first, that being that they don't have a silly parity clauses that stop them releasing on other platforms.

What I am saying is that in the first place, Sony bought up those studios in the first place for their content to be exclusive. Whether the particular game in question was 0% done and they liked the devs track record or the game was 80% of the way there, they spent money for it to end up on their system.

This goes for pretty much all new IP exclusives.

The only difference here is that the general consensus is that Tomb Raider 2 is pretty much already finished? That MS aren't funding development or anything? Perhaps Squeenix went to both Sony and MS, asking for them to fund a game that they don't believe is worth putting their own money into, and MS had the better offer?

Either way, MS by no means SNATCHED Tomb Raider away from Sony fans. They definitely wouldn't be going door-to-door to various devs asking for their game to be exclusive. Even if they were, to say Sony are incapable of doing this and that they never do is preposterous.
 
"Coming holiday 2015 is Rise of The Tomb Raider, exclusively on Xbox One, for some amount of time as we are still working out the details and what the deal actually means for us because we ourselves do not know what we are capable of with all of this money we have so we keep pushing the envelope so that we can obfuscate messages that are normally clear and make them more confusing than they really need to be because fuck it why not we are Microsoft and we want your money and what better way to get your money than to lock in a multi-platform title that was originally going to be released on our competitors' platforms and our own than by paying for it to only be on our own console, which means we are over-delivering on value when we don't necessarily have to, because as I said just a few sentences ago we have a lot of money, so much in fact that coming holiday 2015 is another major title that we are sure our customers are going to enjoy, and that title is Halo 5, a title we managed to secure for a certain amount of time, although we are not too sure of the details because fuck it, money does this sometimes and we are really confused. Welcome to Xbox. We fuckin' love gamers. TV mother fuckers."


iDITGKDh359X1.gif
 
José Mourinho;125602106 said:
What?

MS aren't in the business of ensuring Playstation owners are properly looked after. Even if MS approached SE/CD with the worst intentions of rival fuckery, twiddling their mustaches and laughing maniacally, your point would be irrelevant.

They cut deals to help themselves and their customers. If a bunch of PS4 owners not interested in an Xbox get pissed of in the process, what concern is that to MS?

If anybody has an obligation to other platforms it's SE/CD. If they chose to make a deal it's because they feel it's worthwhile. Doesn't matter if MS planted the idea in their heads -- they're entitled to try -- the IP owners signed an agreement they were perfectly capable of turning down.

Of course MS have no obligation to non Xbox users, however my point stand, they fucked PS/PC users, and that's what I'm arguing here.
 
Wanted to quote this since it got bottom page'd and you put a lot of effort into it and it's good stuff.





Spannicus has it right, even though he thought he was undermining the point. This is not a goddamn charity. We spend HUNDREDS of dollars on their consoles and sixty dollars per game. We line their coffers and we are allowed not only to demand answers, but changes as well. And when they do not listen to us, we have a right to make their products fail.

Just ask Microsoft how happy they are that they originally went with the DRM scheme and all the other fucks up now that the system is being destroyed in Europe and dominated in the USA as well as every other part of the world.

So you want to make their product fail because they secured an exclusive or chose not to disclose the terms of the exclusivity with you?
 
What I am saying is that in the first place, Sony bought up those studios in the first place for their content to be exclusive. Whether the particular game in question was 0% done and they liked the devs track record or the game was 80% of the way there, they spent money for it to end up on their system.

This goes for pretty much all new IP exclusives.

The only difference here is that the general consensus is that Tomb Raider 2 is pretty much already finished? That MS aren't funding development or anything? Perhaps Squeenix went to both Sony and MS, asking for them to fund a game that they don't believe is worth putting their own money into, and MS had the better offer?

Either way, MS by no means SNATCHED Tomb Raider away from Sony fans. They definitely wouldn't be going door-to-door to various devs asking for their game to be exclusive. Even if they were, to say Sony are incapable of doing this and that they never do is preposterous.

You are still going on about Sony's first party and comparing it to Square-Enix/CD? Why?
 
Released the same day (2 days ago) as the article referenced in this thread. Took less than 5 seconds to search and find that article. It's not pretty and packaged like the statement you want, but in less than 500 words it says the same thing, making it clear that it's a timed deal and it's up to SE on what they do with it after that deal has expired. There is absolutely no confusion.

Next time don't rely on GAF for the news. Go find some media outlets you trust and get informed.

No one reads articles for themselves it seems, if they did there wouldn't be so much confusion about this. Seriously, Spencer using Ryse and DR3 as examples should have been a give away.
 
Dude, if they hadn t bought this exclusivity you would have ANOTHER new game to play funded by the millions this deal costed. Tr was guaranteed to hit x1 regardless. It s just a waste of money. Thinking is so important, trust me.

So you actually think because they "bought" this exclusive it actually takes away from some other phantom exclusive that may never be now? Seriously we don't even know how much they paid for it ( not that i would give a shit anyways i am not an investor) secondly there were games in development way before this deal was made. I doubt that because they made this one deal for this one game , all of a sudden any other new IP's will not happen.

People are always pushing the notion that MS has this huge fucking bottomless top hat that they can just pull any amount of money out to "buy an exclusive" so if they are so infinitely rich with this never ending war chest, surely they can have this exclusive and continue to fund new IP's at the same time.

Cutting through the bullshit with a simple image? Yes indeed

215083307_gAxDr-L-2.jpg

How does one cut through bullshit with more bullshit?

Investing in their own studios is what I think most people mean when they say this.

Oh ok you mean like LXP and Black Tusk?
 
It's pretty clever. CD is obviously not allowed to directly make a statement on the specifics of the exclusivity agreement, but Spencer's "duration" statement essentially opened the door for CD to indirectly confirm it by saying that Spencer "confirmed that the exclusivity is timed." Had Spencer/Microsoft not said anything (or said something like "the terms are confidential"), I have to imagine we'd still be in the dark.

Exactly, MS really didn't have to say anything about the terms of the deal, they could've stayed mum, its not their fan base throwing a tantrum to know
 
Of course MS have no obligation to non Xbox users, however my point stand, they fucked PS/PC users, and that's what I'm arguing here.

You do realize that is crazy though.

Like the other guy said. MS could be satan himself. Square is the one who decided to fuck over the ps4/pc gamers.
 
"Coming holiday 2015 is Rise of The Tomb Raider, exclusively on Xbox One, for some amount of time as we are still working out the details and what the deal actually means for us because we ourselves do not know what we are capable of with all of this money we have so we keep pushing the envelope so that we can obfuscate messages that are normally clear and make them more confusing than they really need to be because fuck it why not we are Microsoft and we want your money and what better way to get your money than to lock in a multi-platform title that was originally going to be released on our competitors' platforms and our own than by paying for it to only be on our own console, which means we are over-delivering on value when we don't necessarily have to, because as I said just a few sentences ago we have a lot of money, so much in fact that coming holiday 2015 is another major title that we are sure our customers are going to enjoy, and that title is Halo 5, a title we managed to secure for a certain amount of time, although we are not too sure of the details because fuck it, money does this sometimes and we are really confused. Welcome to Xbox. We fuckin' love gamers. TV mother fuckers."

This is funnier than it had any right to be. Nicely done.
 
Have you guys seen this. Someone at CD slipped up and used the forbidden word: timed

"Thank you for all of the feedback and questions. There has been a lot of coverage about Rise of the Tomb Raider, and a new round of articles followed Phil Spencer’s Eurogamer interview in which he confirmed that the exclusivity is timed. In case you haven’t read that article yet, you can do so here."

http://tombraider.tumblr.com/post/94529480860/rise-of-the-tomb-raider-update
 
....
Blow affirmed that there was no monetary deal involved with this decision.[7] Blow also later acknowledged that he has had difficulties working with Microsoft in the past, and had previously explained several of the issues he had to go through with his earlier game, Braid

You're arguing that Sony is paying off these exclusives, they are not... they just aren't acting like jerks.

Have you heard Blow complain about Braid's development?

He hated that all games needed Achievements. He hated that MS asked for the game to be compatible with SDTVs and have all sorts of requirements for the game to "fit in" with the rest of the XBLA games.

He hates MS because they took Braid and made it look like it was their game (according to him) and he wants to self-publish so he can have the game with his name on it, without needing to pay a massive amount of publishing fees etc.

It is basically Blow choosing Amazon e-books over Woolworths. Sony didn't "offer" him money directly. They allowed him to be entitled to more money his game generates.

Braid was freaking funded mostly BY Microsoft.
 
"Coming holiday 2015 is Rise of The Tomb Raider, exclusively on Xbox One, for some amount of time as we are still working out the details and what the deal actually means for us because we ourselves do not know what we are capable of with all of this money we have so we keep pushing the envelope so that we can obfuscate messages that are normally clear and make them more confusing than they really need to be because fuck it why not we are Microsoft and we want your money and what better way to get your money than to lock in a multi-platform title that was originally going to be released on our competitors' platforms and our own than by paying for it to only be on our own console, which means we are over-delivering on value when we don't necessarily have to, because as I said just a few sentences ago we have a lot of money, so much in fact that coming holiday 2015 is another major title that we are sure our customers are going to enjoy, and that title is Halo 5, a title we managed to secure for a certain amount of time, although we are not too sure of the details because fuck it, money does this sometimes and we are really confused. Welcome to Xbox. We fuckin' love gamers. TV mother fuckers."

Haha!!!! *slow clap*
 
So you want to make their product fail because they secured an exclusive or chose not to disclose the terms of the exclusivity with you?

No. I was not saying that this is a case where I'd advocate for that action. I am saying we as consumers do have a right to demand things of Microsoft, and we have consequences we can enact when they do not listen to us.

I was responding to the absurd idea that Microsoft doesn't have to answer to us, and has no obligation to. They do, if they want us to buy their products.
 
So you want to make their product fail because they secured an exclusive or chose not to disclose the terms of the exclusivity with you?

Knowing Ami, I'm guessing it's the latter. You might be getting a wall of post your way to say the same thing. Thought I'll make it easier. :P

EDIT: Damn. Was a minute too late
 
No one reads articles for themselves it seems, if they did there wouldn't be so much confusion about this. Seriously, Spencer using Ryse and DR3 as examples should have been a give away.

Actually that confuses things even more since those are only coming to PC after XB1.
 
So you actually think because they "bought" this exclusive it actually takes away from some other phantom exclusive that may never be now? Seriously we don't even know how much they paid for it ( not that i would give a shit anyways i am not an investor) secondly there were games in development way before this deal was made. I doubt that because they made this one deal for this one game , all of a sudden any other new IP's will not happen.

People are always pushing the notion that MS has this huge fucking bottomless top hat that they can just pull any amount of money out to "buy an exclusive" so if they are so infinitely rich with this never ending war chest, surely they can have this exclusive and continue to fund new IP's at the same time.



How does one cut through bullshit with more bullshit?

Yes, this is telling me they have no confidence in being a game company and will instead go after well known franchises by barring value from other platforms.

More Sunset/Scalebound please MS.
 
Why do Microsoft have to justify their business dealing to a bunch of lameass gamers on a forum?

Relax. Read:



Released the same day (2 days ago) as the article referenced in this thread. Took less than 5 seconds to search and find that article. It's not pretty and packaged like the statement you want, but in less than 500 words it says the same thing, making it clear that it's a timed deal and it's up to SE on what they do with it after that deal has expired. There is absolutely no confusion.

Next time don't rely on GAF for the news. Go find some media outlets you trust and get informed.
Welp, I got what I wanted LOLOLOLOL
 
Yes because their are no new IP's coming to the xbox. Nope Scalebound doesn't exist, nor does Quantum Break. Figments of the imagination clearly. I know you guys are "mad" about this whole timed exclusive for this one game, but quit with the "they could have been spending money on new IPs" bullshit please? They clearly are doing just that.

Someone pointed out in another thread MS had more internal studios than Sony and I raised an eyebrow as they seem to have no first party exclusives...

So I checked.

Microsoft has about 20 studios but, unfortunately, the vaste majority now only work on Kinect or Mobile (with one on indies)... they have basically 5 studios work on actual AAA games and 5 internal game IPs in development (that we know about): Forza, Gears, Halo, Fable, Project Spark.

That's far far less IPs than Sony's first party studios have and have been working on.

Microsoft has outsourced Crackdown, Scalebound etc, similar to Sony with Bloodborne.
 
What exactly is the situation those morons(including me) couldn't understand? Enlighten us...

It's a pretty straightforward business deal between two companies that believe they're doing what's best for their products to be successful. It's unfortunate for gamers, but it's business. The complainers lashing out on messages boards seem to not understand that or feel like their owed some type of make believe loyalty.

I can only speculate, but I think Square and CD are making out like bandits given what we know about the deal which is very little. You can only assume that they're going to see a much higher return on their investment this time around and that MS made that pot even sweeter.

It's MS that's still at the table rolling the dice. CD just have to deliver a quality product and hope their game is well received.
 
An this post literally destroyed most of this thread lol

To be fair, a lot of people understood that, it's just that with Spencer referencing Ryse and DR3, and with the news MS is involved in marketing and developing the game, that it seems that the game will never see the light of day on PS4. It will come to PC for sure though.
 
Exactly, MS really didn't have to say anything about the terms of the deal, they could've stayed mum, its not their fan base throwing a tantrum to know
Pretty much their fanbase arent the ones acting out, and if you look at from the perspective MS is fine with that. Its probably the reason Spencer keep throwing the screwballs he knows some people are gonna act up.. in other words...

 
We know what is going on with pretty much every Sony exclusive to time-exclusive game, they either own the studio, have a contract, or as seen on the Indie side just offer better reasons to launch on PS4 first, that being that they don't have a silly parity clauses that stop them releasing on other platforms.
To be fair, Sony does buy up IP's from third party developers--and I'm saying that is not a bad thing, because that is how they structure the business deal (and is usually 2-3 game deal attached to it). For example from Gamescom: Wild (Wild Sheep), The Tomorrow Children (PixelJunk), Alien Nation (HouseMarquee) and Until Dawn (Supermassive).
 
They gave an interview explaining their position on the matter. GAF gets upset and demand they speak to the forum personally. Like I said lame ass gamers.
 
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