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Microsoft and Square Enix 'Very Happy' With Rise of the Tomb Raider

Microsoft and Square Enix 'Very Happy' With Rise of the Tomb Raider - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 30 November 2015 / 7,790 Views

Despite relatively low launch sales for Rise of the Tomb Raider on the Xbox One and Xbox 360, Microsoft and Square Enix are "very happy" with the game, according to the game's director, Brian Horton.

Horton spoke with fans on the Tomb Raider forum in a thread concerning our figures for first week sales of the game.

 

"Microsoft and Square are very happy with Rise and the dev team, thanks for the concerns," said Horton. "Crystal and Eidos Montreal made a game we are proud of and we appreciate the overwhelming number of positive reviews and fan feedback."

"We're looking forward to the Game Awards next week where we are nominated for Best Action Adventure and Best Performance for Camilla. Wish us luck, hopefully it's just the beginning of the recognition Tomb Raider and Lara Croft receives this year. It's cool to see her on top again for the second game in a row."

"We're all fans and for me it's been the honor of my career to be a part of such a fantastic legacy. Next year 20th Anniversary!"


Horton added that the development team is focused more on the positive reviews the game has received, as it is not responsible for how well the game sells.

"The dev team is not responsible for sales and therefore we look to reviews and releasing on time to gauge our performance," Horton noted. "We acomplished these goals. The press considers Rise of the Tomb Raider a high quality game based on the scores. I don't see any of this as a lie."

"I didn't mean to go off topic or patronize, but there was suggestion in the thread that the reported sales numbers reflect poorly on the dev team," he added. "Square/Microsoft are happy with Crystal and Eidos Montreal and the game itself. As to the topic of sales, I'm unqualified to discuss it so I won't have anything else to say on this thread. Much love TRF and happy holidays."

Rise of the Tomb Raider launched on the Xbox One and Xbox 360 earlier this month and will release on Windows PC and PlayStation 4 in 2016.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.


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50 Comments
ArchangelMadzz (on 30 November 2015)

Logical, the developers job is to make a great game, they fulfilled their end of the bargain.

Square and MS didn't time/market appropriately for good sales. If I was a dev at crystal I'd be happy with the reviews, but would be disappointed more people aren't playing my creation, then again if 100 people played a game I made and loved it I'd be happy so.

  • +16
DakonBlackblade ArchangelMadzz (on 30 November 2015)

I think MS also didnt market the game properly out of spite, because Square let it out that the PS4 version was coming next year and even opened it to pre-orders, so MS who realy didnt need this game to be sucessfull to sell consoles didnt realy care. RotTR ended up being just the "and we also have" game on the "best MS line up ever". It goes like this: "we have Halo, we have Fallout, we have insert games here and we also have Rise of the Tomb Raider". Just something to add to the list basicaly.

  • 0
aLkaLiNE (on 30 November 2015)

Well, he's being humble, showing support for his team and acknowledging there might be a problem on the sales side of things. Really couldn't ask for a more honest response imo.

  • +13
Roronaa_chan (on 30 November 2015)

Notice how he said the dev team is not responsible for the sales numbers.
The dev team. Only the dev team isn't. Square and MS are.

  • +13
TheGreatGamerGod Roronaa_chan (on 30 November 2015)

Indeed. A short term profit for square at a long term cost. This rebooted series may of been killed off by these measures.

  • +5
Azzanation Roronaa_chan (on 01 December 2015)

No the gamers are responsible for sales.

  • -3
Drakrami (on 30 November 2015)

Whats he supposed to say? Our game freaking bombed and we wished we had a time machine?

  • +7
DonFerrari (on 30 November 2015)

So the title have nothing to do with the speech... he is happy with the game and reveals and won't comment on sales...

  • +7
DonFerrari DonFerrari (on 30 November 2015)

Why the dislike?

  • 0
Angelv577 (on 30 November 2015)

Well, that's true. In this case, the dev team priorities should be releasing a good game and they accomplish it regardless of the sales. MS and SE should be the one worries about the game sales.

  • +5
fluky-nintendy (on 30 November 2015)

Is this real life? What are they smoking??

  • +4
darkenergy fluky-nintendy (on 30 November 2015)

Yes this is real life, no one is smoking except for a certain fanbase(by this I mean "angry").

  • +2
DakonBlackblade fluky-nintendy (on 30 November 2015)

The devs are right to be happy, they released an awesome game on the day they said they would, they are owned by Square tough and Square publishes the game. Square made the deal with MS, any shortcomings regarding the marketting of the game and the fact they chose a terribad release day falls on Square and MS not the devs.

  • +1
drdante (on 30 November 2015)

lets just hope CD doesn't get affected by this. Otherwise we'll see a huge layoffs or worst case scenario, the studio shut down :-(

  • +3
Mr Puggsly (on 30 November 2015)

SE is probably happy because MS paid them, its a great game, and they can sell it on PS4 next year.

I think whether or not this exclusivity was worthwhile falls on MS.

  • +2
DonFerrari Mr Puggsly (on 30 November 2015)

And how much they covered of the costs.

  • +2
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deskpro2k3 (on 30 November 2015)

of course Square Enix is happy. Microsoft already paid them in full. Duh

  • +1
binary solo (on 30 November 2015)

A shame they couldn't say that sales were better than reports from outside sources. Means vgchartz numbers are close to correct, which is not good forbade franchise. It doesn't matter how well a game reviews, if it has a AAA budget but doesn't get AAA sales then you have a problem, which puts job prospects for talented people on the line. CD might have an excellent KPI on this, but if the game doesn't sell their job prospects for future sequels is still hanging in the balance. And that is the real concern. One day there will be a tell all interview by someone and then we'll get to know what some people really thought.

  • +1
Insidb (on 30 November 2015)

"Oh, are they now!?"
-Shareholders-

  • +1
Mr Puggsly Insidb (on 30 November 2015)

Whats the concern with shareholders this gen? I didnt hear much of this when Sony crumbled into a less relevant company.

  • -4
Azuren Insidb (on 30 November 2015)

Except Sony didn't crumble into a less relevant company and has always been one of the best TV manufacturers. Other aspects of the industry aside, if you're referring to the PS3... Well, aligned launch shows that it trounced the XB360, and WW Sales show it in the lead despite starting a year late.

  • +2
darkenergy Insidb (on 30 November 2015)

Why would shareholders be concern about this game? That seems random.

@Azuren are you sure? Because they had to sell things to actually recover from their crisis.

  • 0
Insidb Insidb (on 30 November 2015)

If I have to explain it, you can't afford them (MS shares, that is.).

  • +4
Azuren Insidb (on 01 December 2015)

Relevancy and hard times are two different things. Sony may be coming back from some bad times, but they remained a relevant, important company.

  • 0
Qwark (on 01 December 2015)

Well if we take the sales performance asside it is a great product, so in that light they can be quite content. But the fact their is a risk of TR on Xone being outsold by Bloodborne or Until Dawn over it's life span must be painful.

  • 0
tokilamockingbrd (on 01 December 2015)

good game team. we get em next year.

  • 0
cutzman25 (on 01 December 2015)

Add your comment...i guess they had low expectations on sales

  • 0
NuckinFutz2014 (on 01 December 2015)

What else can he say really other than "....at the time we didn't realize XBOX One was going to fall behind the PS4 in such a horrifying matter. We realized we were screwed early on but we at least wanted to make this a great game in terms of reviews so Microsoft didn't blame us. If this game wins any awards however we at least can hopefully get some respectable sales on the PS4 next year. We think this partnership was terrible but at least things are over now and we can concentrate on future games that are NOT Xbox exclusives...."

  • 0
chidori-chan2 (on 01 December 2015)

Damage control of MS ND sQUAre Enix. tHE Game floped in the chartz, all of us already knew of that.

  • 0
Azzanation (on 01 December 2015)

Good to see that the devs are happy, Great game, well worth a purchase.

  • 0
peterdavid12345 (on 30 November 2015)

Lara Croft is so HOT!

  • 0
GameAnalyser (on 30 November 2015)

HAHA...."Guys you did a great job !"

  • 0
Sprash GameAnalyser (on 01 December 2015)

HAHA...."Guys you did a great job !"

  • +1
GameAnalyser (on 30 November 2015)

HAHA...."Guys you did a great job !"

  • 0
Sprash GameAnalyser (on 01 December 2015)

HAHA...."Guys you did a great job !"

  • +1
Sharpryno (on 30 November 2015)

Probably sold fine. No way they were expecting millions on that launch date. They will probably close out the year with a million plus and move onto the PC release.

People forget MS published this game. They tried to get what they wanted and CD definitely got what they wanted.

  • 0
SamLeheny (on 30 November 2015)

This just makes me sad. I imagine the day when all these artists are working hard on what is shaping up to be a fantastic game. Spirits are high, life is good. And then the producer or whoever walks into the office with that look on his face. Everyone stops working and says
"Oh god, what?"
The response comes:
"...The publisher just made a deal with Microsoft..."

Ugh. For now we can just hope that once this game is 'fully' released, it'll get the market reception is deserves.

  • 0
Mystro-Sama (on 30 November 2015)

Thats the PR thing i've ever heard. If it took the last one a couple mil to break even then theres no one in hell they would be happy with these figures.

  • 0
Mr Puggsly Mystro-Sama (on 30 November 2015)

Square Enix probably broke even selling exclusivity to MS. if anything, its probably MS recouping losses on sales.

  • 0
darkneal (on 01 December 2015)

he didn't need to comment on this at all! Everyone knows its one of the games of the year...and everyone knows Microsoft botched the release! His statements havn't shed any light at all on what the fallout (heh) of this will be.

  • -1
Ruler (on 30 November 2015)

LOL typical PR damage control

  • -1
GameAnalyser (on 30 November 2015)

HAHA...."Guys you did a great job !"

  • -1
Sprash GameAnalyser (on 01 December 2015)

HAHA...."Guys you did a great job !"

  • +1
TheObserver (on 30 November 2015)

The whole thing reads like a desperate attempt at looking cool while falling off a cliff...

  • -2
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