Aaron Greenberg, a marketing manager for Xbox, has revealed on twitter that Microsoft will publish Rise of the Tomb Raider. When asked by a fan asked who the publisher would be Microsoft or Square-Enix, he replied.
https://twitter.com/aarongreenberg/status/542057412988248064
It was back in August when Microsoft revealed that Rise of the Tomb Raider was to be a timed exclusive on the Xbox One and with the news that Microsoft will publish the game it seems to bring up more questions as to when and if the game with appear on other systems. The phrase that was used back in August was "holiday 2015" exclusive.
For Microsoft to shoulder the cost of publishing for a timed exclusive shows how much they want this timed deal. The question of how long it will last is still unanswered. Back in August, Phil Spencer, when asked if this deal was timed exclusive answered.
Obviously the deal does have a duration. I didn't buy the IP in perpetuityHopefully questions of what this deal means for consumers will be answered soon.
With the recent news that Sony locked down a normally multi-platform, 3rd party game themselves, Street Fighter V. (Even though it will also appear on PC) It would seem that we might be seeing a lot more of this sort of thing in the future.
With these type of deals springing up it seems the only people that loose in this situation are the consumers.
Update:
Square Enix have confirmed this with a statement to gamespot which reads.
Yes, Microsoft will be publishing Rise of the Tomb Raider on Xbox,And
Microsoft has always seen huge potential in Tomb Raider and they will get behind this game with more support across development, marketing and retail than ever before, which we believe will be a step in continuing to build the Tomb Raider franchise as one of the biggest in gaming.-
Source: Aaron Greenberg