https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Akier6EZHQH1dDc4eFpacWZuR1ZDTlNyMGg3VThWZkE&usp=sharing

PROJECTION Yearly Change Total

Because of KylieDog, I ended up procrastinating for an hour, and doing a really rough projection of retail sales (I think the 3.4 sales I read somewhere are shipped to retailers, not sold to customers). I'm not really satisfied with it, since I rushed through it, but I was interested in getting some feedback/opinions, and some techniques you guys use to project sales. The main thing I'm frusturated about is Christmas, and how to take it into account, because if I can, I might be able to use other games.

Since I wasn't sure how to take into account Christmas, I basically looked for games that were released around March (Bad Company 2 and Splinter Cell in my case. I was going to use other games, but I decided that I wasn't willing to spend the time to get the extra data) and tried to get a relationship between week 3 sales to EoY sales for the first year. Then I just averaged the decline in yearly sales and applied that to Tomb Raider's projected first year sales as well.

So aside from my shoddy method, my method also doesn't take into accout the PS4 and 720. So if you buy my method, then my results should be seen as a "best case scenario". So that's not really good news for Square Enix ^.^;;

Edit: Another interesting tibit/flaw in my method.

Bad Company's week 2 and 3 decline in sales:  -57.54%, -20.77%

Splinter Cell Conviction's week 2 and 3 decline in sales: -65.20%, -26.40%

Tomb Raider's actual week 2 and 3 decline in sales: -68.60%, -43.00%

Why's the 43% important? Because it might mean there's something a lot different with Tomb Raider than BC2 and SCC, and my first year EoY sales projections (which make up the bulk up of sales and affect the future year sales) might be way over estimated. Anyway, it doesn't really look good for Square Enix either way.

I am thinking 1.2-1.5 million at best. This is a rough time of the year. The gen is ending and everyone is sporadically trying to figure out which game to buy. At the same time sales are dropping. Bioshock infinite is going to slow down sales.

I still believe that Tomb Raid will have long legs. It's one of the best selling games in the franchise and I think word of mouth will keep it on a slow burn for a long time. I've recommend it to all my gamer friends. The ones who've taken my advice have all loved it and have recommended it themselves. That tells me that Tomb Raider fell off a lot of people's radars in the last few years, but they are waiting for an excuse to return to Lara's world.

What if it gets a next gen release. Tomb Raider Legend was a PS2 game and it was released on the Xbox 360 and later on the PS3. It's true that it's the end of this generation, but becuase of that a upgraded next gen port would be an easy cash in for Square Enix and anyone that missed it this gen would have a launch window game of the highest quality to enjoy.

Do you mean 1.2-1.5 million more? Because from VGChartz's data (unless my sleep deprived brain messed up), retailers sold 1.5 already, not taking into account PC sales.

PC sales wont be much but I might need to bump it up to 2-2.5. It's not going to get a million more with Bioshock Infinite on the way. 

Tomb Raider isnt like the old Tomb Raiders anymore. Its back in AAA contention after over a decade of searching to find a sweet spot art direction-wise. I bumped up my sales to 2-2.5 M.

Made another sheet called "Optimistic" just copy pasting Uncharted 2's year decline in sales (which is EXTREMELY unrealistic IMO) to duplicate Uncharted's "legs" (even if it doesn't sell a lot in the beginning, it might continue to sell over time, which I personally doubt, given both the difference in marketing/brand strength [Uncharted 2 probably got a boost in sales with Uncharted 3] and the coming of the next generation).

Even with that, the projected numbers don't really fit Square Enix's expectation of shipping 5-6 million right now.

Yeah, you also have to remember Uncharted 2 was a first party game and was able to be bundled. Its kind of Sonys duty to make sure that game sales and gets into as many peoples homes as possible. Thats Nintendo logic. Tomb Raider is going to sell as a lone game.

And Tomb Raider is going to have to deal with the next gen (although if they do a next gen re-release, that may or may not increase or decrease sales than if it released earlier in the gen).