Probably the most controversial deal made this gen, MS secured timed exclusivity of Rise of The Tomb Raider, it released this November on XB1 and X360. its releasing in January on PC, and later in the year on PS4.
Tomb Raider launched and sold 200k~ in November in the USA. roughly 42K~ in its first week in the UK. We have yet to see how it performed in Dec in the USA. but its fair to say that its launch was a disappointment considering the fact that the last TR sold 8 million units accross the 5 platforms it released on.
Square said it was looking at the long term when they made this deal. Obviously a lot would disagree.
Personally i think it really hurt the franchise in the long run. i dont agree that the deal "killed the franchise" like a lot are claiming. The game apperantly is quite good, and it should have seen similar numbers to the 2013 reboot numbers, but the exclusivity really fucked up its chances. i think on xbox the game will cross the 1 million mark, maybe by the time the PS4 version launched. its probably going to be around 400k-500k by years end in the USA alone. on Xbox i can see lifetime sales being around the 2 million mark, give or take, if the game has good legs.
on PC i expect good numbers, not great, but good. and on PS4 it will sell decently as well, but nothing shattering either. overall, i expect the game to sell around 3-4 million units.
Square and Edios had to go through a lot to earn the goodwill of gamers with the 2013 reboot, they managed to actually make the game sell quite a lot and build up a fanbase, but then they go and do a stupid exclusivity deal, which will result in people losing interest, rather than forking out extra money to buy an XB1. as a result i think the franchises fanbase will be cut from the 8 million it had, to around 3-4 million. and the next tomb raider will suffer because of this.
