Rise of the Tomb Raider [XO, XOX, X360, PS4, P4Pro]

[Deleted member 11852]

This might all be true, but Tomb Raider is a big fish all in itself. At least it used to be. I can't fathom why a Tomb Raider game would need to hide behind an action RPG and an online shooter. Surely, there must be a lot of Tomb Raider fans outthere.

I don't think Tomb Raider is a big fish anymore. I'm a Tomb Raider fan and have incredibly fond memories of the original PlayStation games but let's be frank, it's a franchise that died a horrible death and which was resurrected. I loved the 2013 reboot but it didn't sell great and I think it's mostly us slightly older gamers who remember when Tomb Raider was good. To younger folks they've likely hardly of Lara and the franchise but it's just another third person shooter with some platforming in a sea of third person action games.

And if you own a PS4 and Xbox One and bought the Uncharted Collection you may have had your fill of third person action adventurers. I burned out halfway through Uncharted 3 playing the Collection. I will return it to but Uncharted is a franchise I crave in small bursts.

Unlike Fallout 4.. 200 hours and counting. No burnout, no fatigue, just hunger for more.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I loved the 2013 reboot but it didn't sell great.

It sold 8.5 million copies!

 

[Phil]

Unlike Fallout 4.. 200 hours and counting. No burnout, no fatigue, just hunger for more.

Really? I admittedly haven't played Fallout 4 (and it's not on my list yet), but I do play Witcher 3 and its easy to be burned out by it. It's just massive. I'm glad Tomb Raider isn't a game like that - in fact, I appreciate that it isn't. I just want it to be a nice mythical story-driven adventure game without the side-quests. Which is my biggest gripe with it really - I don't want it to pretend it's Uncharted. I want it to be Tomb Raider. And from what I hear it's pretty similar to the reboot, which is okay - i can live with that and I will buy it, but my nostalgic memory of Tomb Raider craves for something more adventuring focused.

But yeah, 8.5 millions sold on the reboot. It isn't a GTA, but it certainly isn't bad. It's a pity there isn't any breakdown of that figure into regions and platforms... I think Tomb Raider has a strong following in Europe and of course on PlayStation and PC. If we had a regional and platform breakdown, it perhaps would be easier to discuss how much launching within Fallout had an impact on its sales on both Xbox platforms... I really can't believe it was that big. Surely anyone who played the reboot and liked it would get Rise of the Tomb Raider irrespective of what is launching alongside it........?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

It sold 8.5 million copies!

I didn't say it sold bad I said it didn't sell great. 8.5m across five platforms which included the PS3/360 (150m+ user base) before PS4/XBO launched. And a lot of those sales were way after launch which likely means the sales were at budget prices. Better than nothing sure but I refer you to Square Enix's "extraordinary loss" statement. It wasn't just Tomb Raider but that was their big hope and why they made the most noise about it.

Really? I admittedly haven't played Fallout 4 (and it's not on my list yet), but I do play Witcher 3 and its easy to be burned out by it. It's just massive.

I also found completing Witcher 3 a slog as I felt the story was just too drawn out. By week 4 I was struggling o maintain enthusiasm and it felt more like a war of attrition. But short of Gwent there isn't much variety of gameplay in Witcher 3 whereas Fallout 4 has a fair amount of variety. Very different play styles, different things to do, lots and lots of more manageable stories etc.

But yeah, 8.5 millions sold on the reboot. It isn't a GTA, but it certainly isn't bad. It's a pity there isn't any breakdown of that figure into regions and platforms...

8.5m isn't GTA. Nor is it Call of Duty, Destiny, Elder Scrolls/Fallout 4, Mario, Zelda! I.e, not close to any significant franchise. And what I think really doesn't matter, Square Enix have made enough statements to know they are disappointed and expected more. They wanted a return to the good old days. I am fearful what the sales of Rise will mean for any possible third instalment but I look forward to playing Rise in the future. It looks very much my kind of third person action adventure even if it lacks Uncharted's snappy writing and mega setpieces.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

 

[London Geezer]

Gosh. 4 weeks is longer than any of my relationships in the last 3 years.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

@Phil They advertised the game pretty heavily online and on tv. From a marketing standpoint, I'd say they did just about everything right in pushing the game to the general public and to Xbox owners. The interest is just not there. It could be that most of the fans are on playstation or on pc, but I doubt it. I have a feeling that even if it were released simultaneously on all platforms, it would still be a relatively under-performing title. I'm just hoping it does ok when it hits those other platformings, because it's great. Wouldn't be surprised if it didn't generate much interest.

It's bad enough to have to launch against COD every year, but that's just one title.

This year also had Fallout 4 (massive) and SW:BF (huge, especially with the Film coming out the same season). In Europe add FIFA. It wasn't going to do well this Holiday season regardless of how many platforms it sold on. But it would have sold a few more copies at least. Even with PS4. Who would pick up the new TR game instead of the remastered Uncharted that included all 3 games? At best most users would likely put off the TR game until Spring when new title releases slow down.

Regards,
SB

 

[AlNom]

Gosh. 4 weeks is longer than any of my relationships in the last 3 years.

A strong case multiplatform, eh?

 

[dobwal]

Gosh. 4 weeks is longer than any of my relationships in the last 3 years.

What, you and Shifty have an on-again off-again relationship?

 

[dobwal]

A strong case multiplatform, eh?

Looking at JC3's Amazon charting , I don't know if SE thinks thats the solution either.

JC is charting at 67th (xb1) and 72th (ps4) for the month of dec. TR charted at 64th for nov and is currently 38th for Dec.

 

[ArcticCircle]

8.5m isn't GTA. Nor is it Call of Duty, Destiny, Elder Scrolls/Fallout 4, Mario, Zelda! I.e, not close to any significant franchise.

You can drop Zelda from that list. Only combined sales of Twilight Princess (Gamecube and Wii) have sold as much as Tomb Raider reboot. I mean Zelda used to be one of those brand that sold like mad but then there were new IPs that sold even better and poor Zelda got left behind to it's usual 4+ million sales (still great, but not CoD, GTA, Mario or Elder Scroll numbers).

Anyway, I think CD boss leaving means that someone payed the price for the poor deal and/or sales results. Game quality seem to be good from couple of let's plays I've watched and I'll sure to buy this from Steam sales next year. It's shame that Rise of the Tomb Raider is probably bomb of the year. Heh, I liked both Order 1886 and Tomb Raider... both huge commercial bombs. Well at least Witcher 3 did alright.

 

[London Geezer]

What, you and Shifty have an on-again off-again relationship?

It's complicated.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Really?! How many Tomb Reindeer bundles moved X1s? How many of those buyers were going to get a PS4 until TR was limited to X1? I doubt it had any measurable material benefit to X1 sales at all. It was a gamble that didn't pay out.

Neither of us knows said numbers, so we can't really be sure.
I didn't suggest it was a gamble that had a very positive outcome (it probably didn't, not on the short term at least). I just said Microsoft did the deal in the hopes that some users would be swayed to buy the XBone instead (why else?), and you can be sure there's at least a handful of Tomb Raider fans who were undecided and went with Microsoft for the game.

It sold 8.5 million copies!

According to wikipedia, it sold 3.4 million during pre-sales + first month (which is probably the bulk of full-price sales) and then 4 million after 5 months. The new-gen re-release probably got them a million or so sales more but it debuted at $40/40€ IIRC. Where I think a large chunk of those sales came from was the PC at ridiculously low prices. I remember seeing the title at around 12€ on Steam during holidays 2013. During 2014 it went as low as 5€ and in 2015 it was even part of a Humble Bundle.
I wonder how much Square-Enix is making per copy by selling the game at 4€. 1€ or less?

 

[upnorthsox]

Neither of us knows said numbers, so we can't really be sure.
I didn't suggest it was a gamble that had a very positive outcome (it probably didn't, not on the short term at least). I just said Microsoft did the deal in the hopes that some users would be swayed to buy the XBone instead (why else?), and you can be sure there's at least a handful of Tomb Raider fans who were undecided and went with Microsoft for the game.



According to wikipedia, it sold 3.4 million during pre-sales + first month (which is probably the bulk of full-price sales) and then 4 million after 5 months. The new-gen re-release probably got them a million or so sales more but it debuted at $40/40€ IIRC. Where I think a large chunk of those sales came from was the PC at ridiculously low prices. I remember seeing the title at around 12€ on Steam during holidays 2013. During 2014 it went as low as 5€ and in 2015 it was even part of a Humble Bundle.
I wonder how much Square-Enix is making per copy by selling the game at 4€. 1€ or less?

All games though go through the same cycle where low sales price is part of their overall sales. Sales in $$ wasn't even the question though, it was whether it was a popular title based on units sold, and with 8.5 million units bought the answer is yes it was.

 

[BRiT]

Well you know 30% of the price on steam goes to Valve.

 

[Phil]

Good information in that Wikipedia link.

Lets compare that to Uncharted, which is very similar:

Uncharted; Drakes Fortune - release December 2007 - sold 2.6 million by E3 2009 (1.5 years)
Uncharted 2 - release October 2009 (sold 1 million within a month) - sold 3.5 million by February 2010 (4 months) and totaled at 6 million in March 2015.
Uncharted 3 - release November 2011 (sold probably around 1 million on launch day) - shipped 3.8 million in the launch period to retailers and totaled around 6 million in March 2015

Tell you what - I think Tomb Raiders 3.4 million was mighty impressive considering it's all within the launch period on two platforms (X360 + PS3 and maybe PC). Yes, Uncharted might have more given it only sold on the PS3, but its exclusivity probably means that it received more exposure of being one of the few "must-have-titles on PS3". 8 million over all platforms within less than 3 years is also a very solid number. And it is supposedly the most successful Tomb Raider to date.

If you follow the path of Uncharted's success, I think Tomb Raider could have been on a great path to similar success too. Makes the whole exclusivity deal even more baffling. What a way to build an obstacle...

 

[Clukos]

I still think releasing the same day as Fallout 4 was a bigger mistake. They wanted to cash in on BF deals but they made the TR bundle exclusive to Best Buy (i think) and that was only the 1TB model at $399. A release in December would've been better imo, much less competition to worry about. Also, don't forget RoTR released very close to Halo 5 as well which you'd expect most X1 users to buy instead.

 

[chris1515]

Good information in that Wikipedia link.

Lets compare that to Uncharted, which is very similar:

Uncharted; Drakes Fortune - release December 2007 - sold 2.6 million by E3 2009 (1.5 years)
Uncharted 2 - release October 2009 (sold 1 million within a month) - sold 3.5 million by February 2010 (4 months) and totaled at 6 million in March 2015.
Uncharted 3 - release November 2011 (sold probably around 1 million on launch day) - shipped 3.8 million in the launch period to retailers and totaled around 6 million in March 2015

Tell you what - I think Tomb Raiders 3.4 million was mighty impressive considering it's all within the launch period on two platforms (X360 + PS3 and maybe PC). Yes, Uncharted might have more given it only sold on the PS3, but its exclusivity probably means that it received more exposure of being one of the few "must-have-titles on PS3". 8 million over all platforms within less than 3 years is also a very solid number. And it is supposedly the most successful Tomb Raider to date.

If you follow the path of Uncharted's success, I think Tomb Raider could have been on a great path to similar success too. Makes the whole exclusivity deal even more baffling. What a way to build an obstacle...

The number are false. Uncharted series sold more than 21 millions. Each episode solding more than the others. UC 3 sold probably 9 to 11 millions copies. First month they sold twice more copies of UC3 than UC2 during the same period.

http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2015...ake-collection-is-coming-to-ps4-this-october/

Since the launch of the PS4, we’ve seen plenty of requests across our Twitter, Facebook, and message boards all over the internet for the first three games in the Uncharted series, which have managed to sell an amazing 21+ million copies and garner an average 92 Metacritic rating, to receive a remastered release.

 

[Phil]

I assume part of the problem is that there are different sources between the claims. Some sources are listing retailer sales (to consumers), some like Sony could be using sales to retailers. Then you have different dates to account for. I'm sure the series has sold 21 million (to retailers, consumers whatever), but I guess I was more interested to see how a sale chart would compare for either Uncharted to Tomb Raider. I think what Tomb Raider managed to sell to be quite respectable given the history of the series. Uncharted might be a bigger fish by now to PlayStation gamers, but I still can't fathom why Rise of the Tomb Raider hasn't sold better. Maybe it is all about Fallout 4 and being on the wrong platform in combination. Shrugs.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

If SCE counted with the Plus downloads of Uncharted titles for the PS3 as sales, that would explain the skyrocketed numbers..

 

[chris1515]

I assume part of the problem is that there are different sources between the claims. Some sources are listing retailer sales (to consumers), some like Sony could be using sales to retailers. Then you have different dates to account for. I'm sure the series has sold 21 million (to retailers, consumers whatever), but I guess I was more interested to see how a sale chart would compare for either Uncharted to Tomb Raider. I think what Tomb Raider managed to sell to be quite respectable given the history of the series. Uncharted might be a bigger fish by now to PlayStation gamers, but I still can't fathom why Rise of the Tomb Raider hasn't sold better. Maybe it is all about Fallout 4 and being on the wrong platform in combination. Shrugs.

Tomb Raider reboot remaster sold better on PS4 than Xbox One.
http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2014/08/12/exclusivity-big-mistake-tomb-raider

69% of sales in UK where the advantage of PS4 is far from 69% against 31%. And if I remember well the Tomb Raider reboot sold better on PS3 than Xbox 360. And the best sales of the reboot on PS3/360 or the re-master are in Europe.

It was a dangerous cocktail a game with the biggest fans are playstation gamers and with good sales in Europe where The Xbox One is not popular.

Another problem I think Tomb Raider playstation buyers are Uncharted fans too. Between wait one year Tomb Raider and buy Uncharted 4 three months later and never play UC 4, the choice was easy. Uncharted is a bigger series critically and commercially...

The goal of Microsoft was obviously to made some playstation player to switch side and it is not a success...