If you're a fan of the popular Tomb Raider series, then you'll know Microsoft has acquired exclusivity for the upcoming Rise of the Tomb Raider. This means that the game will release only on Xbox platforms – specifically, the Xbox One.
GamingBolt recently spoke with analyst Michael Pachter, who has made some interesting guesses at just how much Rise of the Tomb Raider's exclusivity may have cost Microsoft:
“Back in 2007-09, when Rob Dyer was the head of third-party relations at Sony. He told me that Microsoft was paying publishers for these one month exclusives, and the most famous was the Call of Duty map packs that always came out 30 days early on the Xbox 360. And Rob said the amounts they were paying were ridiculous and Sony wasn’t able to match and get them the same day. Sony had to outbid Microsoft to get thirty days early, and he said it wasn’t worth it.”
“I think he turned out to be wrong. He’s not there anymore, but I think he turned out to be wrong, and I think Microsoft continues to use that trick to pay up for limited time exclusives, and so whatever they payed Square Enix, I’m sure Square Enix did the math and feels that they’re whole.”
“They’re going to sell, probably, a few less units on the PlayStation and a few more units on the Xbox, but the amount of money they got up front offsets whatever the net loss in sales is. And Microsoft is probably paying millions of dollars. Probably not hundreds of millions of dollars, but probably as much as ten million dollars, maybe more.”
Pachter's generally been very hit-and-miss, as anyone who follows him can probably attest. That said, he is still one of the leading men in games, and his opinion has merit. If Microsoft did indeed pay upwards of $10 million, then I too have a hard time understanding how they plan to profit in the short-term.
