People are waiting for the better versions to come out if they are waiting at all...

Okay, several things.

TR2013 sold 8.5M, 3.4M were in the first month (full price). We don't exactly know when the discounting started, but on console that typically takes a little while longer than PC for sure. Then there was the 'Definitive' console versions releasing again at full price later on. 

From this article we know that sometime between 3.4M units and 6M units it 'exceeded profit expectations' :

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/once-an-underperformer-tomb-raider-nearing-6-million-in-sales/1100-6418162/

Purely from a mathematical standpoint, 6M - 3.4M = 2.6M does not = 'the vast majority of sales being bargain sales' in order to limp to profitability.

Since you failed to address any of the other points and ignored them, I'll restate the main issue however. By ALL accounts, TR2013 was the most successful TR launch of all time, bar none. 3.4M sold in the first month. Going by industry norms, that's about a hundred million dollars coming back in profit (going with the $27 figure).

Now what does it mean if a title both blows away all previous sales records for the franchise and STILL is publicly called a disappointment by Square Enix? Just how crazy WAS the budget for TR2013, and how did they manage to screw up their projections so badly? That's just bad business practices by SE.

Finally, install base is actually not what you think it is in terms of sales reality. In the early period of the generation sales can actually be quite high for successful titles due to there being far less to choose from overall, concentrating things a good bit. Simultaneously you have the most hardcore and least price-concious people buying during the first phases of the console generation. So you see things like Forza 5 massively outselling Forza 6. And on very stable annual mega franchises like CoD and Madden, you see relative normalcy in numbers that seem to ignore install base.

Perhaps the biggest example of how install base doesn't geometrically inflate sales is Halo 3 to Halo 4 / Reach / ODST. The install base for X360 was absolutely puny on Halo 3's launch (smaller than X1 totals on Halo 5 launch!), but there was a REALLY hefty core fanbase that came out to buy it. Years later as the followup Halo games came out, the install base was absolutely massively higher, but again, the sales were in a similar range as before seemingly independent of install base.

All of this comes back to you comparing UNBELIEVABLY paltry TR2015 sales and saying 'Isn't this standard for Tomb Raider'? No, no it's not.

3.4M first month was above normal for TR franchise.

600kish first month is way below normal for TR franchise, even taking into account install base/only two platforms.

The month isn't over for Tomb Raider so we can't say for sure what its actual numbers are yet.

As for when TR price dropped there's this.

http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=138464

This shows that 4 months after launch, it was selling for bargin bin prices. There are plenty of other examples but this is one of the earlier ones. This alone shows that the SE had to do drastic measures to get sales and that a large chunk of those 8.5m sales aren't as good as they would like. I'm thinking that SE wanted to avoid this situation and took the Xbox money to alleviate the damage. 

That's a steam sale. Tomb Raider is not a gigantic PC series and virtually zero PC games stay at full price for long (COD and Blizzard titles seem to be the exceptions that prove the rule).

You cut out the link that showed SE noting profitability had been 'beyond profit expectations' by the time 6M sales were hit.

If TR had been turned from a disappointment at 3.4M to 'beyond expectations' by 6M, why would they decide to go platform exclusive? It seems that SE was just bad at business.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-26-tomb-raider-has-sold-3-4-million-copies-failed-to-hit-expectations

In fact, things were so bad that the CEO resigned :

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/square-enix-ceo-yoichi-wada-steps-down-as-slow-sales-of-games-like-hitman-absolution-lead-to-massive-company-restructuring/

Not every gaming company is so poorly managed.

The decision to take $$ to go timed exclusive probably sounded like a safe temporary bet, but appears to be an absolute disaster for both Tomb Raider and Square Enix. There's no logical way they projected such horrendous sales of TR2015 and got paid enough to make up for it, let alone the damage to the brand.

Still playing it. Still loving it. That's all that counts, right?


No. I hate that this game is doing so poorly in sales because it's spectacular. My favorite gaming experience so far this year. The problem is that, if it doesn't sell well on Xbox One and then turns around and flops on the other platforms (don't let me down, PS4 fanbase!) then what's the motivation to make another one? Why bother with all of the content and quality if they can make a $10 Arcade game and make more money?

You can't force people to like what you like and support what you want them to support but the ball has really been dropped on this one. Probably due to poor management and timing but that doesn't change the reality that a really high profile title from a known quality franchise is being totally ignored. This is the kind of thing that keeps third parties from supporting Nintendo because "Our games don't sell on their platforms".

Hold on, Lara. Just hold on a little longer....

*edit* screw it.  I'm making a thread!

Agreed 1000%. It sucks when good games or series are mismanaged.

8th best attended league in the world

1. Germany
2. England / Wales
3. Spain
4. Mexico
5. France / Monaco
6. Italy
7. China
8. United States / Canada
9. Argentina
10. Netherlands

Maybe someday Argentina and the Netherlands will embrace the sport as well. ;)

This is such a shame...

The reboot could have been a blossoming franchise. The sequel should not only match the 1st game, but should significantly surpass the sale of the 1st game (ala Assassin's Creed 1, Batman Arkham Asylum 1,  etc).
You want your game to reach many people as possible for the future of the franchise. As a 3rd party developer, they messed up, essentially and potentially destroying any future Tomb Raider games.

Is this list compiled from total attendance, or % of attendance vs country's population? I suspect it's the first one.

Remember, lies, damned lies and statistics! Suddenly, over 4x the population of the most populous European country and still only 8th.