Will Rise of the Tomb Raider be a commercial flop this fall?

[binary solo]

I think when it was announced and the release schedules and reveals for the games that are coming holiday 2015 weren't known the potential for the game was quite big. Known quantities were AC, Halo and CoD, and only AC really competes there for a similar player base, which I think CD probably thought they could use game fatigue for AC in its favour. They also were pretty sure they would be up against UC4 indirectly but in terms of attention for the existing Xb one user base that wasn't a problem.

Now with the 3rd party release schedule for Holiday 2015 really competing directly for the gamer dollar this is definitely going to split the attention of the Xb one player base. Lara Croft will never get lost in the crowd, she's too big of a name for that to happen. But she's also not at her pinnacle either and as such she is not going to command attention either. If Star Wars and Fallout hit their beats and are both great games, and if AC ends up restoring faith in the franchise then it will be a hard fought holiday season. It will come down to how much MS promotes this over all other franchises. Aside from Halo, I think MS has cleared the decks for exclusive marketing of multiplats. No CoD, no AC, Fallout(?). So The can definitely put time and money into marketing it.

I think it will do OK, but I think CD may end up questioning putting this into the holiday release schedule. Tomb Raider seems like either Feb/March boosting game, or a May pre-summer game. Big name games have no problem releasing any time and getting solid sales, and Tomb raider doesn't need to be released in the holidays to attract the holiday demographic. If it was possible releasing in the first half of the year with a calendar year exclusivity is more likely to get people to cave in and buy Xb one. Waiting a month and a bit until announcements of alternative platforms is really not a problem, but having to wait 7 or more months before any multiplat announcement, and then having to wait longer before the game releases makes buying a Xb one for this game a much stronger proposition.