Is Lara Croft being used to push sales of Microsoft’s Xbox One?
Back during Gamescom 2014, Microsoft announced that Rise of the Tomb Raider will be exclusive to Xbox for 2015.
Back during Gamescom 2014, Microsoft announced that Rise of the Tomb Raider will be exclusive to Xbox for 2015. Now, after a year of speculation and controversies, Square Enix has finally revealed that the game will launch early 2016 for PC and later in the year on PS4. Even though it’s a cross-gen game, its not coming to PS3 at all.
The extent of this deal was never made public by Microsoft or Square Enix and announcing this now seems illogical, as it makes more sense to declare it a few months after launch. Now, all the confusion regarding this has vanished, removing all elements of doubt. After facing heavy criticism for being elusive, Square Enix might have wanted to erase these doubts and let PC/PS4 owners breathe a sigh of relief. This could also be a move made by Microsoft, considering a year long wait for the PlayStation 4 version might convince someone to buy an Xbox One.
Square Enix clearly wanted to avoid releasing it around the launch of Uncharted 4, fearing that the sales of the PS4 version would be too low. Now that Uncharted 4 has been delayed to 2016, they will be losing out on a massive chunk of sales given the popularity of the PS4 and how the Tomb Raider brand is more associated with PlayStation. When looking at the release schedule, it’s pretty clear that Rise of the Tomb Raider will be dwarfed; not by Uncharted 4 but by all the big games releasing at the end of October and November — including Fallout 4.
The PC version doesn’t seem that far off but by the time it launches on PS4 there would be no buzz around its release because the story would’ve been spoiled. And assuming Microsoft’s purpose was to push Xbox Ones, it’s now unclear exactly how many consoles this will sell considering the game is also coming to Xbox 360.
But Microsoft is still the real winner as they got to promote the game as their big holiday exclusive alongside Halo 5 and it should still help push some Ones. Microsoft should also benefit from the fact that the PC version will be available on Steam PC’s and the Windows 10 store.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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