I think its the sorta deal that could either go amazingly for square and MS, or completely destroy square enix and the future of crystal.
They'll make money, but at the cost of losing a significant chunk of a fanbase for future titles.

The first one really didn't do great in sales. It actually underperformed their expectations. What Square has done is make a sequel to a game that didn't meet sales expectations in the first place and limit it to the smaller weaker market while it might go up against the superior Uncharted 4. When the exclusive deal is up Square will want it on the PS4 simply because by that point the PS4 will have over 50% market share. The X1 gains very little from this deal other than making MS look like dicks for buying multiplatform games and making them exclusives.

They arent unrealistic, they are definitely high but their were somewhat valid reasons behind them.

TR past success and UC current success left them with high hopes. It actually had strong legs due to word of mouth and lived up to expectations.

Sleeping Dogs went through some kind of dev hell were Activision sold the game to SQEX, doubt that was a cheap move for them.

Hitman... I have no idea how Hitman did, I just want a new one. Absolution was so much fun =D

Were you really going to buy both Uncharted and Rise of Tomb Raider in the same Holiday? PS4 shouldn't care because they are getting Uncharted 4 and Xbox One owner should get a more polished Tomb Raider..... Win/Win 

-_- Research first please.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-03-07-tomb-raider-finally-beats-profit-expectations

Legs on TR were much better than expected and it went on to sell close to if not more than 6m by now.

SQEX dont care what MS gain out of this, they care about their gains. What they gain is exclusive advertising from MS going up against UC4, this means that people with intrest in UC4 but have an XBO will buy TR, it means MS fanboys will buy TR to support MS against Sony, it means greater sales on the MS side for the TR series. Then it gets ported and the larger PS fanbase can buy it. At first it would have competed with UC4 on PS4, now it has a nice clear space where it wont be overshadowed on PS4 where its likely to sell the most.
SQEX are smart, they have taken money AND put it in the best position to sell on both manufacturers console.

But of course this is dirty of MS and SQEX and they can both go rot in hell, companies shouldnt do business with each other, they shouldnt look to profit, thats insanity.

My problem has always been that Crystal Dynamics always intended to bring it to other platforms, so basically Microsoft gave them a ton of money to give me, the consumer, fewer options.

Let me repeat this: they spent money, to give me fewer options. They did not spend the money to meaningfully increase the viability of their own platform but to play keep-away with Sony. This is is anti-consumer practice at its most blatant.

It doesn't even do Crystal Dynamics that much good; TR 2013 was the highest grossing Tomb Raider game of all time and it BARELY made break-even. This company desperately needs to learn how to keep production values in check, and it's going to come crashing down soon. I expect the Tomb Raider after Rise will be a turd, polished with 50 million Microsoft dollars.

But will Rise sell? I honestly don't know. I foresee record returns because gifters are not great at buying for the right console, but I also think it could totally hit 4 million lifetime sales. The exclusive window thing will probably shift it from 60-40 in PS4's favor to 50-50, but it will probably also do that by costing Crystal Dynamics 2-300K PS4 sales.

tomb raider is great,.. console manufactures paying to make gamer's lives worse is absolute bullshit.


...although i won't complain too much.  getting tomb raider 6 months late is a much easier to swallow than the shit-sandwich xbox owners got with destiny.  only getting 80 % of a game at launch and only 50% of an expansion with every dlc is really shitty and i kind of get why the only ones that hate destiny seem to be xbox fans. 

This is timed exclusivity for a cross gen title. Even if it gets dev focus a la ACU, its still going to be held back considerably. Even ACU which is exclusive current gen has marginally advantages for the one. Not to mention earlier release means more time for bugs, and patches later. The only real advantage is that X1 gets it first and it puts off competing with UC4 on PS4.

The recent reboot isn't comparable to the Tomb Raider series of old. I think it's fair to call it a Uncharted rip-off with a Lara Croft twist, It's actually why the game is so good because of the similar Uncharted element to the game. That's why I was so surprise with the game on the weekend it so much better then I expected.   

It's like comparing the Dark Knight Trilogy to the old movies the reboot is so good and doesn't compare to the old movies and hardly take any element from the old movies. Same can be said about the Tomb Raider reboot it doesn't take any of the series roots to influence the modern games. It's not the old fanbase that was supporting this new game.