Discussion: Tomb Raider XBOne exclusive sequel coming to PC & PS4 next year, console ports done right?

[James Mason]

Rise of the Tomb Raider, the next entry in the revived Tomb Raider series, was previously announced as an XBox One exclusive title. But publisher Square Enix announced that they'd release the game for the other major platforms a year after it's XBO release.

Is this a better solution to the way console games should be ported to other systems? It gives them an entire year after the game is "finished" to make sure it will work properly on other hardware, as well as get any other bugs that come out patched up as well. This allows consoles to keep an "exclusive" but also doesn't hinder the profit margins of the developers/publishers by limiting the scope of their sales, and it gives them the time needed to get the game ready for other platforms as well as see some return on their development costs.

Is a year really too long to wait for a game that's been released on another system for you? Is it more worth it to you to get access to the game as early as possible even if it's a broken mess?

Source: http://gadgets.ndtv.com/games/news/xbox-one-exclusive-rise-of-the-tomb-raider-coming-to-pc-ps4-next-year-719530

Tom's Article: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/tomb-raider-to-ps4-pc,29663.html

 

[Frag Maniac]

Quite frankly I was surprised to see MS sway them to delay the PS4 release that long. However, with PC getting it soon after the Xone launch, it's more of a MS exclusive than Xone exclusive.

Because of that, normally I would say, no, it's not the best way to stagger releases, because PC needs MUCH more dev time than console.

Then I look at how even Rockstar, Rocksteady, and CDPR lately are not exactly producing PC versions as polished as they should be, even after MUCH dev time.

So the reality is, it's more about one's ambitions in development, and how big and skilled a team they have, than the timeline. A lot of times teams try to cram too much into a PC version, or hand the port over to a small, unskilled team.

For instance a lot of people were quick to point out that Arkham Knight's PC port was botched because the 12 man team that did it only had 2 months. Yet Forza 6 was ported to PC by 4 guys in 4 months, and it came out fine and was used for a global Dx12 demo.

That's obviously because the guys porting it really knew what they were doing.