There have been a lot of opinions bandied about since the news broke that the next Tomb Raider game was going to be an Xbox One exclusive title. Some of it was filled with fanboy-ism from either side, some of it comprised of some misleading statistics (I know! Absolutely shocking that someone might twist the numbers to skew perception!!) and some actually made sense.
Firstly, exclusive titles can influence what the consumer buys. When I purchased an eighth generation console one of the things I did was look at the exclusive titles that each brought to the table. I didn't have a predisposition to one console over another, as I hadn't been a true console gamer since the Sega Genesis, so the available and forthcoming games were all that I cared about. After weighing my options I settled on a Playstation 4. Truthfully, Tomb Raider didn't even enter into my consideration. I hadn't played a Tomb Raider title since the original, and didn't really think I had any interest.
At launch the available titles didn't spark much interest in me, and I found myself waiting through a couple of months of last-gen ports and generally lackluster offerings. Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition was released and I purchased it the week of release, mostly to get some use out of my $400 paperweight. To say I was blown away would be an overstatement, but I found it to be a high quality game that I enjoyed thoroughly. I found myself excited for the sequel, and even added the comics that will fill in the gap between games to my pull list.
I was disappointed to hear the news upon its release. You will see comments on the various articles that covered the news that Tomb Raider sold double the number of copies on the PS4 than on the Xbox One. This is true, but the number of prospective players on the PS4 side of that equation was much higher at the time, as the Playstation's sales had and continue to, albeit at a slower pace, surpass those of the Xbox. As that gap narrows, so to will the gap between gamers willing to trade their hard earned dollars for the newest Tomb Raider offering.
I don't know a lot about the development of modern games, but in the past it was always believed that a higher quality game can be produced when a studio focuses on one platform. They can make the best game possible on THAT machine, without splitting resources or making accommodations to cater to multiple consoles. If this still holds true, perhaps Crystal Dynamics will be supplying the diehard Tomb Raider fans with the best possible experience.
For me, I don't fit into that diehard category, and this is a decision that I can't get behind. Tomb Raider was a pleasant surprise for me, a way for me to pass some time until other games that I had earmarked were released. I would have bought the sequel when it was released for the Playstation, an interesting 15-20 hour diversion. I will not by an Xbox for one game.
What can we as gamers do? Probably not much, if money has changed hands and papers have been signed we are stuck with this. No amount of vitriolic comments will change that. What we can do is vote with our dollars. This is a game that struggled to sell enough copies to be profitable, it underperformed by Square Enix's own admission. It took nine months for the original release of the game to break even and that was with an entire gaming community to purchase their product. The next game will be catering to, at best, half of the audience that it could be, this is not a recipe for success. What the gamer can do is be resolute, if you don't have and have no intention of buying an Xbox One, don't. Speak the only language a corporation can understand, seen in the hieroglyphics of balance sheets and profit and loss reports. That's the only way we can make a difference.
(PS -- Can we please agree to retire every iteration of a title, in every medium, that begins; The Rise of, The Dawn of, or The Age of...? Seemingly every other big release is using one or the other and it's getting tiresome.)
No comments:
Post a Comment