Rise of the Tomb Raider has 'done well,' Microsoft says
"It launched in a very crowded window, but it has done well."
While Microsoft is not sharing specific sales numbers for Rise of the Tomb Raider's Xbox One and Xbox 360 release last month, a marketing executive at company has now said the action-adventure game has "done well." The game launched on November 10, the same day as Fallout 4, and a busy time all around for new releases.
In an interview with DualShockers, Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg acknowledged that some people might have held off on buying Rise of the Tomb Raider to play Fallout 4 -- but not in every case.
"It launched in a very crowded window, but it has done well," he said. "A lot of people bought both Fallout 4 and Tomb Raider. At the same time we know a lot of people may have bought Tomb Raider and waited on Fallout or bought Fallout and waited on Tomb Raider."
Back in October, Greenberg said he was confident that Rise of the Tomb Raider could stand against Fallout 4, saying he thought people would buy both.
He went on to say that Rise of the Tomb Raider is expected to "continue to sell through the holidays."
"They didn't buy one of these titles and there's still a lot of great titles, Halo 5, Star Wars Battlefront, Call of Duty, Fallout 4. There are so many great games in such a short window, that we think that people will continue to buy these titles through holiday and into next year."
Already, though, Microsoft is "really pleased" with how Rise of the Tomb Raider has performed.
"I know even over Black Friday it did very well; we've heard some very nice feedback from some of our top retailers," he said. "So we'll continue to watch how it performs, but the game has definitely been delivering for us."
Greenberg added that Microsoft is not only pleased with Rise of the Tomb Raider's commercial performance, but also the critical response to it.
"I think first you look at reviews that were really really strong. The game is an incredibly high-quality game, really fun to play, challenging, I think one of the most beautiful games I've ever seen on the Xbox One," he said. "From that standpoint, it's really clear that [developer Crystal Dynamics] delivered a masterpiece, and so we're just excited to be able to have that title exclusively this holiday, and I think being able to offer that as part of our greatest games lineup is a great thing for our fans."
GameSpot's Rise of the Tomb Raider review scored the game a 9/10. Other reviewers generally enjoyed the game as well.
Greenberg's comments about Rise of the Tomb Raider's sales performance echo what game director Brian Horton said earlier this month after some sales "concerns" were voiced in a forum thread.
"There was suggestion in the thread that the reported sales numbers reflect poorly on the dev team," he said at the time. "Square/Microsoft are happy with Crystal and [co-developer 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."
No official sales numbers for Rise of the Tomb Raider have been announced. The game did not make the top ten chart for US physical game sales for November 2015.
Rise of the Tomb Raider comes to PlayStation 4 and PC in 2016.