Tomb Raider is a series that has been near and dear to my heart ever since I bought the box set of the first three games fir PC circa 1998. I loved those first games and have played all of the series except for Angel of Darkness and Underworld (I did buy them). The games are of varying quality but Lara's character always shines through. I fell in love with her.
When Crystal Dynamics rebooted the franchise I was pretty excited and liked their work and especially loved last year's Tomb Raider which I played on Xbox 360. I enjoyed it so much I bought the remastered version for PS4 earlier this year.
Now I've pretty much decided to boycott the series because of their Xbox exclusivity deal with Microsoft. I HATE Xbox with an undying passion for what they tried to do at E3 2013. I will never buy an Xbox One. I no longer buy games for 360. And here comes Crystal Dynamics announcing the new Tomb Raider will be an Xbox exclusive.
Crystal has stated that this is the best business decision for them. I beg to differ. I am a hardcore Tomb Raider fan. I have bought EVERY SINGLE TOMB RAIDER game. And they have completely alienated me. They throw us a bone by saying I can still play Tomb Raider Remastered on PS4. OR I can play the Temple of Osiris game which is nothing but an Xbox Arcade game. Fuck them. I'm not buying the Osiris game on ANY SYSTEM. I'm boycotting it. This reasoning is eerily reminiscent of that dick Microsoft dude that basically gave the finger to a submarine crewmember that didnt have the 24/7 internet connection required for the Xbox One. He basically told the dude, well, too bad for you, but you can still play the Xbox 360. That's the elitist mindset of Microsoft. "Oh, you can't afford or don't have access to the internet? Well, that's not OUR problem. That's YOUR problem! Deal with it!"
It's since been let out that Microsoft isn't exactly getting an infinite lock on the game, that it's actually a "timed" exclusive, probably meaning it will come to PS sometime in the future. What a DUMB move. If it comes out 2 weeks later, yeah, I might buy it. But I get the impression that it's going to be a couple of months. There's no way I'll buy it then. There's plenty of other games to play. I have a lot of options to spend my money on. And it's not buy Osiris.
The fact that Microsoft, Square, and Crystal are all reluctant to say how long the timed exclusive will be or what exactly it actually MEANS makes me even suspect that it really might just be weeks. But they are trying to confuse stupid people into buying an Xbox One.
I don't like that Crystal is trying to paint this move as the best way to bring the new game to wider audiences. IT"S NOT! CRYSTAL, HOW STUPID DO YOU THINK WE ARE? It's about MONEY! Basically, Microsoft bribed you into this whole stupid stunt. They gave you money to exhibit a certain behavior that is inherently suicidal to your business.
This move is not going to sell more Xboxes. It will make you sell less copies of your game. It just pisses me off. I can see going exclusive with a new IP. I have no problem with that. But when you take a game that is traditionally available on ALL platforms and then say it's only going to be on ONE, you're going to make people like me VERY MAD. You might want to rethink your strategy, because I'm very close to never buying another Tomb Raider for as long as I live.
Microsoft and Crystal Dynamics, you deserve each other. I hope you're happy together.
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