Polygon writes:

Rise of the Tomb Raider, the next game in the reboot of the storied franchise, will be an Xbox exclusive, Microsoft corporate vice president Phil Harrison announced at Gamescom today.

There’s a quote explaining “why” from Crystal Dynamics, but it may as well read: “You know what we like?  Money, sweet, sweet Microsoft money.  Thanks for buying our last game though, suckers!”.

I can understand why some people feel betrayed, as I think there’s a difference between securing a brand-new IP like Sunset Overdrive, and making the sequel of a successful multi-platform game (a game which, apparently, sold better on the PlayStation) available exclusively on the Xbox. At the end of that day, though, that’s business, and Crystal Dynamics must have been written a pretty huge check to both make the game exclusive and potentially alienate any number of fans.  It’s a gamble and it’ll be interesting to see if it pays off in the long run.

It seems like an especially weird business decision, given that the last Tomb Raider game sold better on PlayStation systems, but I guess Microsoft can write some pretty huge checks.  Either way, I guess Winter 2015 is going to boil down to Uncharted vs. Tomb Raider, and I know who gets my money in that equation.