As long as Phil Spencer is head of Xbox, fans should never expect to see a third-party exclusive title on the Xbox One or any future versions of the console. It's the shocking truth, but is it a good move?
In an interview with IGN, Phil Spencer made it clear that he is no fan of third-party exclusives, which is the most likely scenario why Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 will have exclusive content on the PlayStation 4 instead of the Xbox brand as per usual.
Now, we know that Microsoft has inked a deal with Crystal Dynamics to bring Rise of the Tomb Raider first to Xbox One and Xbox 360, which sounds like Phil Spencer is being a bit hypocritical. However, he did state that Rise of the Tomb Raider is a different issue because Microsoft is helping with the game's development and is also the publisher.
Basically, Microsoft seems to be pumping money and manpower into this game, so it is definitely not a traditional third-party exclusive in the sense that the money paid goes directly into the coffers of the developers and not into the game.
Microsoft is willing to do deals such as the Rise of the Tomb Raider one, along with deals on the lines of Fallout 4 mods coming to Xbox One first and EA Access being an exclusive service.
The EA Access deal was easy because Sony didn't want it, an enormous loss to the company because EA Access is sweet.
As it stands right now, Microsoft is throwing its money and support behind its own first-party exclusive games instead of filling the bank account of video game publishers. Sony, on the other hand, is taking advantage of this move by the software giant by gobbling up many of what it doesn't want.
At the end of the day, we view this as a good move by Microsoft. Nintendo has been doing it for a very long time, so we see no reason why Microsoft cannot, and ultimately, Sony.
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