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

Yeah, some of the interiors have bad aliasing or shimmering now that I advanced a fair bit, they are distracting if standing still but nothing world ending honestly.

 

PC version it is then!

 

Well, I really like this game a lot.

It is like the first one, which is perfect for me.

Gameplay is great and so far, story is interesting.

Graphics are extremely good imo.

Overall, after view hours of play, game is excellent!

 

So apparently: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=189177452&postcount=5206

If this is true this deal is beyond idiotic, i have no words to describe how bad this whole chain of events actually is.

 

They, SE, must have been really hard up for money to continue base development if they agreed to those terms.


Though when did this renegotiation happen, considering PS4 version was delayed at least a year ago? Frankly I cant believe they were basing decisions on preorders from 1 year before release? Sounds like bullshit to me.

 

It probably seemed like a win/win at the time. Assuming the Xbox was to be moderately successful (it's not that far behind in the US anyway), they maybe hoped they would enjoy a big success thanks to the exclusivity and the added PR through it among Xbox fans and then continue with that as they then promote the other versions until their final release. Now that the game has had rather disappointing reception, it's a double lose/lose. They couldn't promote the other version early enough and have a long wait till they can ship them. Total Fail.

 

They should add a clause where if the title didn't sell well on X1, then they can move forward the release date for PS4 and PC version. Probably next time....

 

The game itself is pretty good I enjoyed it overall even though I liked the characters from Tomb Raider DE better. I just think this dodgy business deal of shafting other platform owners for which they were some of the true fans is despicable and would do much harm than good in the long run. SE truly f***ed up this time, this game could be enjoyed by so many more.

 

I'm sure they did. Except it wasn't agreed to.
All sorts of clauses are negotiated all the time. We'll never know what they are without seeing the contract itself. Lots of hearsay. The contents of a contract are often not disclosed to the full company and only a handful of individuals at the negotiating table.

Or better said: if you don't know the salary of your coworkers (and most people don't) -- what are the chances you'd be given the opportunity to know the contents and clauses of a deal.

 

Is there a reasonable explanation why they couldn't just shift the release to next year? Instead of releasing it with all the big shots?

They spending millions of dollars to make a game. They manage to really make a great game. But they completely screw up something so (from outside view) simple. With this release date it was send to death.

I would be happy to understand the reasoning a bit more as it seems (from outside view) just downright stupid.

 

How i see it: MS paid for holiday 2015 exclusivity, shifting the date would also mean either:
A) Ps4/PC release date had to be pushed further back (which was something SQE didn't want)
B) Ps4/PC release would be too close to the X1 release (which was something MS didn't want)

It was basically a shitty deal, the game didn't move any units (not even in the top 20 NPD for the month of its release) and the deal probably hurt the TR brand more than the opposite.

 

I think it's quite simple. MS paid mega $$$$$ for holiday 2015 exclusivity. The developer has had a year to solely develop the game to work really well on XBOne & 360. It's just a shame that they have only sold 500k copies or there abouts so far. It's not going to change much when it eventually releases on PC and PS4/PS3. The huge bung up front from MS will compensate from the low sales count. Tomb Raider from 2013 sold nearly 4m copies on PS3/PS4 & PC combined, alongside another 2.4m on XBOne and 360. I am sure SE at the time were unimpressed by the combined sales...which are now appro 6.5m.....ROTTR will not sell anywhere near this number.

So here's hoping SE managed to get a good bung from MS for exclusivity.

 

Launching Tomb Raider on the PS4 during the originally planned 6 months after the XBone's release (April 2016) would mean launching it within one month of Uncharted 4 in March.
As good as Rise of the Tomb Raider might be, this schedule would be completely brutal to it. No one would even mention Tomb Raider within 3 months of Uncharted 4's release.
Just as a comparison, Uncharted 3 for PS3 exclusively sold over 6 million copies, whereas the cumulative sales for 2013's Tomb Raider for PC + X360 + PS3 (before the Definitive Edition remaster for new-gens) were around 3.4 million.

And even if ROTR released at the same time as the XBone's version last month, it would launch within one month of Uncharted's remastered trilogy for the PS4 in October, which - again - would cause a hit on Square Enix' title.

That said, postponing PS4's ROTR for 2016's Holidays might have been a very good decision.
What I'm guessing is that Square-Enix will probably try to refresh the game a little bit by then, in order to call the attention of the press.
They can show substantially better graphics by taking advantage of the PS4's higher performance and/or maybe even *gasp* supporting PlaystationVR, include whatever paid DLCs they release in the meantime and then just call it "Rise of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition".

 

So is it official that the PS4 version isn't going to be released until late 2016...if thats the case, then it will have to be a special edition, similar to the Definitive Edition of Tomb Raider. It will have to contain all DLC, updated gfx and effects and possibly addition content.

Even at that, it will probably have to be released at a budget price to get lots of sales.

 

What a bad deal this would end up turning out to be for MS if it goes down like that. Give a large financial incentive for timed exclusivity only for the other platform to have the better version in the end.

 

Why would it be a bad deal? Was it a bad deal for Microsoft and Sony when GTA V for PC came out with first-person mode? Was it a bad deal for the XBone to get Elite: Dangerous before the PC version which came with potentially much better graphics? For the PS4 to get Rocket League first when the PC version came out without the need for a paid online subscription?

Microsoft paid for the timed exclusivity and got its timed exclusivity. Most of the games' full-priced sales happen during the first 3 months after release, and that's where most of the money comes from anyway. Microsoft paid for the exclusivity in the hopes that the game would move more people to buy the XBone instead of the PS4 this holiday season, and they were probably successful to some point.


Besides, when holidays 2016 come then Square-Enix can still launch a GOTY edition for the XBOne with the DLCs.

 

You're right.