I don't think it'll flop, but it will sell under expectations.

Yea I mean you want competition but screw that. I would change the date. Early to mid December. It'll be alone then if I'm not mistaken. The games coming out the late part of the year are all heavyweights

Good point, but you almost must note that the GTA/Last of Us bundle sold pretty well for itself. MS always has something planned for fourth quarter because truthfully its their only shot. A bundled Tomb Raider and Halo Xbox One for $350 is still a killer vs a $400 PS4 on Black Friday.

Microsoft isnt funding the game. They are giving Square funds though to make up for the losses as well as some extra development bits.

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.

I think it will do okay. It won't set the charts on fire but it will do decently.

Same day as Fallout 4 is interesting...I wonder if we will see a '1 week polish' delay to push it off the same date.

I don't think it will flop, but I don't think it will sell as well as it's predecessor. TR sells better on Playstation platforms and late ports sell worse than simultaneous releases. I don't think the additional sales the game will get on Xbox One will make up for the sales lost on Playstation platforms.

^ This. Microsoft most definitely paid for the commercial losses Tomb Raider will most definitely get compared to the first game because of their interference.

The sad thing is SE may have killed a good thing. The reboot was warmly welcomed, mostly on PS consoles. Going XB exclusive may have netted SE some extra cash upfront, but it looks like it may hurt things in the long run.

First of all, they are trying to sell on a console that gave them fewer sales for the first one, which already means fewer on XB are interested in the game. Second, they are going up against a crowded holiday season, which means they will most likely be one of the games to be overshadowed on release. And third, even though the game is most likely going to be launching on the PS4 eventually, I don't think that many PS4 owners will care as much. I think some will feel betrayed, since they supported the franchise more than the other fanbase. This shows them that their loyalty/money meant nothing to SE. Of course, the biggest reason will be that if the exclusivity is only for ~6 months, ROTR will be releasing within a month or so of UC4, a game PS4 owners are much more hyped about.

If sales are really disappointing, I can see this being the last we see of Lara for awhile.

The ironic thing is that they probably thought by delaying the PS4 version, they could avoid clashing with Uncharted 4 (original release date was this holiday). Instead they're releasing later on the more popular console in terms of sales and for the TR fanbase, and late releases tend to sell much worse than multiplats released in the same window.