A media franchise , also known as a multimedia franchise , is a collection of related media in which several derivative works have been produced from an original creative work of fiction, such as a film , a work of literature , a television program , or a video game . Bob Iger , chief executive of the Walt Disney Company , defined the word franchise as "something that creates value across multiple businesses and across multiple territories over a long period of time.”
187-423: Tomb Raider , known as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider from 2001 to 2008, is a media franchise that originated with an action-adventure video game series created by British video game developer Core Design . The franchise is currently owned by CDE Entertainment ; it was formerly owned by Eidos Interactive , then by Square Enix Europe after Square Enix's acquisition of Eidos in 2009 until Embracer Group purchased
374-658: A PIO / DMA identification failure. These units were not covered under the extended warranty. In 2002, Microsoft and Nvidia entered arbitration over a dispute on the pricing of Nvidia's chips for the Xbox. Nvidia's filing with the SEC indicated that Microsoft was seeking a $ 13 million discount on shipments for NVIDIA's fiscal year 2002. Microsoft alleged violations of the agreement the two companies entered, sought reduced chipset pricing, and sought to ensure that Nvidia fulfill Microsoft's chipset orders without limits on quantity. The matter
561-419: A hard disk drive , arguing that they were cheaply manufactured and could easily be updated every year. The 4 developers gained the support of Ed Fries , the head of Microsoft's gaming division, who believed the use of a hard drive, in particular, would give the console a technical edge among competitors despite its high manufacturing cost. The two opposing teams pitched their arguments to Gates on May 5, 1999, at
748-471: A series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail to celebrate classic UK video games. The character of Lara Croft has similarly enjoyed popularity, standing out during her initial appearance in the male-dominated video game market, and continuing to stand out throughout the series' history. After her debut in 1996, Lara Croft was featured on the front cover of British culture magazine The Face ,
935-716: A 2008 review of the series' history by Develop . In 2006, Tomb Raider was voted one of Britain's top 10 designs in the Great British Design Quest organised by the BBC and the Design Museum . The game appeared in a list of British design icons which included Concorde , Mini , World Wide Web , Grand Theft Auto , K2 telephone box , London tube map , AEC Routemaster bus, and the Supermarine Spitfire . In 2020, Tomb Raider featured on
1122-550: A British game development studio. One of the people involved in its creation was Toby Gard , who was mostly responsible for creating the character of Lara Croft. Gard originally envisioned the character as a man: company co-founder Jeremy Heath-Smith was worried the character would be seen as derivative of Indiana Jones , so Gard changed the character's gender. Her design underwent multiple revisions and redrafts during early development. The game proved an unexpected commercial success, reversing Eidos' then-bleak financial situation. After
1309-523: A backpack, a utility belt with holsters on either side, and twin pistols. Later games have multiple new outfits for her. Lara Croft has been voiced by five actresses in the video game series: Shelley Blond , Judith Gibbins, Jonell Elliott, Keeley Hawes , and Camilla Luddington . In other media, Croft was also voiced by Minnie Driver in the animated series and portrayed by Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander in feature films. Multiple models and body doubles have portrayed Croft in promotional material until
1496-543: A built-in hard disk . The console also was built with direct support for broadband connectivity to the Internet via an integrated Ethernet port, and with the release of Xbox Live , a fee-based online gaming service, a year after the console's launch, Microsoft gained an early foothold in online gaming and made the Xbox a strong competitor in the sixth generation of consoles. The popularity of killer app blockbuster titles such as Bungie 's Halo 2 contributed to
1683-600: A character or fictional world becoming popular in one medium, and then expanding to others through licensing agreements , with respect to intellectual property in the franchise's characters and settings. As one author explains, "For the studios, a home-run is a film from which a multimedia 'franchise' can be generated; the colossally expensive creation of cross-media conglomerates predicated on synergistic rewards provides an obvious imperative to develop such products." The trend later developed wherein franchises would be launched in multiple forms of media simultaneously; for instance,
1870-453: A compilation entitled The Lara Croft Collection for Nintendo Switch in 2023. An entry for mobile devices, an endless runner platformer titled Lara Croft: Relic Run , was released in 2015. Square Enix Montreal also released a platform-puzzler for mobile devices, Lara Croft Go in 2015. In 2003, four Tomb Raider titles for mobile phones were released. Developed by Emerald City Games for iOS and Android devices, Tomb Raider Reloaded
2057-663: A compilation release that included Anniversary and Legend remastered in HD resolution, along with the PlayStation 3 version of Underworld . The disc includes avatars for PlayStation Home, a Theme Pack, new Trophies, Developer's Diary videos for the three games, and trailers for Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light as bonus content. A reboot of the series, titled Tomb Raider , was released worldwide in 2013 for Microsoft Windows , PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Its sequel, Rise of
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#17327727208922244-445: A darker and grittier interpretation of the character. Another priority was presenting Lara as a more human character, putting her in vulnerable situations, and showing how she begins her journey to becoming a "tomb raider" through both narrative and gameplay. The reboot, simply entitled Tomb Raider , was met with critical acclaim at launch in 2013, and became the start of the "Survivor Trilogy". A sequel, eventually revealed as Rise of
2431-519: A deal to put Electronic Arts ' popular titles on Xbox Live to boost the popularity of their service. By 2005, despite notable first party releases in Conker: Live & Reloaded and Forza Motorsport , Microsoft began phasing out the Xbox in favor of their next console, the Xbox 360 . Games such as Kameo: Elements of Power and Perfect Dark Zero , which were originally to be developed for
2618-497: A deal with Sony Computer Entertainment to keep the console version of Tomb Raider II and future games exclusive to PlayStation until the year 2000. The PlayStation version was released in Japan in 1998. Tomb Raider III launched in 1998. As with Tomb Raider II , the PlayStation version released in Japan the following year. The fourth consecutive title in the series, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation , released in 1999. In 2000, with
2805-500: A desire to have annual releases for the Christmas window. This led them to request that a second team be created to develop an expanded version of The Further Adventures and release that as Tomb Raider III in the interim. The decision was not communicated to the original team, which learned of the move only when Tomb Raider III was publicly announced as a 1998 title for the original PlayStation. They were exhausted and withdrew from
2992-463: A focus on survival, including a need to find food and water. Core Design developer Gavin Rummery has stated that the island setting would not have resembled the 2013 reboot, but rather have been "self-contained". Eidos was initially behind the plan but intended to maintain an annual release schedule, and therefore brought in a new team to handle The Further Adventures of Lara Croft . Rummery objected on
3179-485: A franchise can even be created, which ultimately leads to the creation of brand worlds. Since the creation of Disneyland in 1955, bringing fictional media franchises to life through the theme parks slowly became increasingly popular as the way to perfectly blend tourism and real-life involvement with media itself. Similar to transmedia, the concept of bringing fictional media into a non-fictional space where fans can immerse themselves in real-life versions of elements from
3366-483: A full orchestra as opposed to the synthesised instruments of previous titles, it was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra . For Legend , Troels Brun Folmann composed the music and managed the sound effects. Alongside composing a large amount of music for the game, he created micro-scores for small segments within gameplay. Folmann returned to score Anniversary , doing re-orchestrations of
3553-527: A gaming console, they could not provide the direct Windows interface to users. While Thompson and Bach had warned Gates and Steve Ballmer about these large-scale changes from the initial proposal in late 1999, the matter came to a head at a February 14, 2000, meeting, informally referred to as the Valentine's Day Massacre, in which Gates furiously vented about the new cost proposal and massive changes in this console from what had been previously presented, since
3740-582: A heavily stripped-down Windows variant that was not compatible with DirectX. As such, Gates sided with the DirectX concept and gave Berkes' team permission to create a new video game console. Despite this, WebTV would still play a part in the Xbox's initial launch. Rick Thompson and Robert J. Bach were responsible for overseeing the Xbox's design. The DirectX team began constructing prototype consoles, purchasing several Dell computers and using their internal parts. Initially, it envisioned that after designing
3927-413: A level. Lara can swim through water, a rarity in games at the time that has continued through the series. According to original software engineer and later studio manager Gavin Rummery, the original set-up of interlinking rooms was inspired by Egyptian multi-roomed tombs, particularly the tomb of Tutankhamun . The feel of the gameplay was intended to evoke that of the 1989 video game Prince of Persia . In
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#17327727208924114-446: A meeting attended by over twenty different people. WebTV's team, among whom were Nick Baker, Dave Riola, Steve Perlman, and Tim Bucher, and their sponsor, Craig Mundie, made the case that creating an appliance would be far cheaper, highlighting that most consoles were generally sold at around $ 300. They also wanted to use a custom-made graphics chip, which could be shared across several different home devices. Conversely, Fries, vouching for
4301-511: A million copies in the US. Although the console gained strong third-party support from its inception, many early Xbox games did not fully use its powerful hardware until a full year after its release. Xbox versions of cross-platform games sometimes came with a few additional features and/or graphical improvements to distinguish them from the PS2 and GameCube versions of the same game, thus negating one of
4488-424: A modeling agency, several television shows ( Playboy's Penthouse , in 1959), and even its own television channel . Twenty-five years later, Playboy released private clubs and restaurants, movie theaters, a radio show , direct to video films, music and book publishing (including original works in addition to its anthologies of cartoons, photographs, recipes, advice, articles or fiction that had originally appeared in
4675-630: A nationwide concert tour, an American Idol book that made the bestseller list and the film From Justin to Kelly . A transmedia franchise however is often referred to by the simpler term "media franchise". The term media franchise is often used to describe the popular adaptation of a work into films, like the popular Twilight book series that was adapted into the five films of The Twilight Saga . Other neologisms exist to describe various franchise types including metaseries , which can be used to describe works such as Isaac Asimov 's Foundation series . Multimedia franchises usually develop through
4862-406: A new engine was built from scratch, but due to being unfamiliar and unused to the technology of the PS2, the team encountered multiple problems such as needing to remove areas and characters due to polygon restrictions. Due to the deadlines imposed, the team were forced to cut corners, meaning that the game reached store shelves in a poor condition. For Legend , the staff at Crystal Dynamics created
5049-486: A new film starring Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft, simply titled Tomb Raider , taking heavy inspiration from the 2013 game of the same name. Shadow was developed by Eidos-Montréal as Crystal Dynamics completed Marvel's Avengers , though Crystal would provide secondary support. The game concluded Lara's origin story. A "Definitive Edition", featuring all 7 DLCs for Shadow was released in November 2019. Following
5236-613: A position previously held by real-life celebrities. She similarly was featured in Irish rock band U2 's PopMart Tour . The character was inducted onto the Walk of Game in 2006, and earned multiple mentions in the Guinness World Records : she was recognised as the "most successful human video game heroine" in 2006, and earned six awards in 2010. As part of the latter honours, Guinness World Records editor Gaz Deaves said that
5423-694: A practice known as "cracking". Within a few months of its release the initial layer of security on the Xbox BIOS (which relied heavily on obfuscation ) was broken by MIT student Andrew Huang and the contents of the "hidden" boot ROM embedded on the MCPx chip were extracted using some custom built hardware. Once this information was available, the code was soon modified so that it would skip digital signature checks and media flags, allowing unsigned code, Xbox game backups, etc., to be run. Modding an Xbox in any manner will void its warranty, as it may require disassembly of
5610-479: A pressure-sensitive directional pad, two analog triggers, a Back button, a Start button, two accessory slots and six 8-bit analog action buttons (A/Green, B/Red, X/Blue, Y/Yellow, and Black and White buttons). The standard Xbox controller (also nicknamed the "Fatty" and later, the "Duke" ) was originally the controller bundled with Xbox systems for all territories except Japan. The controller has been criticized for being bulky compared to other video game controllers; it
5797-486: A projected release date of Christmas 2006. Development continued while other Core Design staff were working on the platformer Free Running . When Core Design was sold to Rebellion Developments in June 2006, Eidos requested the project's cancellation. It was suggested by staff that Eidos did not want to let outside developers handle the franchise. An Indiana Jones "reskin" of the game was never completed, and Free Running
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5984-497: A proprietary engine from the ground up, named the Crystal Engine. The engine and the game's content were developed in parallel, leading to scheduling and workload difficulties. Anniversary used the same engine as Legend . Underworld used a new engine built specifically for the game, although its basic codebase was shared with Legend . The group of developers who were working on this new engine were not tied specifically to
6171-460: A similar folded and stacked circuit board design used in Sony's DualShock 2 controller, but the company refused to manufacture such a design for Microsoft. This led to the controller being bulky and nearly three times the size of Sony's controller. This initial controller design was never launched in Japan. The console instead launched with a smaller, redesigned version named "Controller S" that did use
6358-453: A sizeable original opening theme, but due to time constraints the majority of it ended up being discarded, much to Connelly's later regret. Only the opening segment survived. The music for The Angel of Darkness , composed by Connelly and Martin Iveson, was the one element of production that did not encounter problems, as recording was finished before the major content cuts happened. Scored using
6545-465: A strong reception among critics. In 2002 and 2003, several high-profile releases helped the Xbox gain momentum and distinguish itself from the PS2. Microsoft purchased Rare , responsible for many Nintendo 64 hit games, to expand their first party portfolio. The Xbox Live online service was launched in late 2002 alongside pilot titles MotoGP , MechAssault and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon . Several best-selling and critically acclaimed titles for
6732-470: A television advertisement for the Xbox in the United Kingdom after complaints that it was "offensive, shocking and in bad taste." It depicted a mother giving birth to a baby boy, fired like a projectile through a window, aging rapidly as he flies through the air. The advertisement ends with an old man crash-landing into his own grave and the slogan, "Life is short. Play more." The Xbox's successor,
6919-457: A theoretical 115 million vertices/second. It has a peak fillrate of 932 megapixels /second, capable of rendering a theoretical 29 million 32-pixel triangles/second. With bandwidth limitations, it has a realistic fillrate of 250–700 megapixels/second, with Z-buffering , fogging , alpha blending , and texture mapping , giving it a real-world performance of 7.8–21 million 32-pixel triangles/second. The Xbox controller features two analog sticks ,
7106-480: A version of Windows CE for its Dreamcast console to be used by game developers. Additionally, Gates had directly approached Sony CEO Nobuyuki Idei before the public announcement of the PS2 regarding letting Microsoft develop programming software for the console. However, the offer was declined by Idei in favor of having Sony create proprietary software. Microsoft had also attempted to meet with Hiroshi Yamauchi and Genyo Takeda of Nintendo to potentially acquire
7293-484: Is a 32-bit 733 MHz , custom Intel Pentium III Coppermine-based processor. It has a 133 MHz 64-bit GTL+ front-side bus (FSB) with a 1.06 GB/s bandwidth. The system has 64 MB unified DDR SDRAM , with a 6.4 GB/s bandwidth, of which 1.06 GB/s is used by the CPU and 5.34 GB/s is shared by the rest of the system. Its GPU is Nvidia 's 233 MHz NV2A . It is capable of geometry calculations for up to
7480-519: Is an action arcade and free-to-play game released by CDE Entertainment in 2022. A Tomb Raider themed downloadable content expansion for PowerWash Simulator was released for free on 31 January 2023. The plans for the franchise following the release of Tomb Raider II in 1997 were heavily revised. Initially, an expansion disk was planned for II entitled The Further Adventures of Lara Croft , which would have been set in India. Some engineering work
7667-483: Is both hailed as an empowering figure for women and a negative role model due to her hyper-sexualized and unrealistic appearance. Media franchise A media franchise often consists of cross-marketing across more than one medium. For the owners, the goal of increasing profit through diversity can extend the commercial profitability of the franchise and create strong feelings of identity and ownership in its consumers. Those large groups of dedicated consumers create
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7854-490: Is later discovered to be Yamatai, but the island is also home to savage bandits, who were victims of previous wrecks. Lara's attempts to find a way off the island lead her to discover that the island itself is stopping them from leaving, which she discovered is linked to the still-living soul of the Sun Queen Himiko . Lara tries to find a way to banish the spirit of the sun queen in order to get home. The aftermath of
8041-539: Is much larger and heavier than its contemporaries. This is largely due to a bulky tray-loading DVD-ROM drive and the standard-size 3.5-inch hard drive. The Xbox has also pioneered safety features, such as breakaway cables for the controllers to prevent the console from being pulled from the surface upon which it rests. Several internal hardware revisions have been made in an ongoing battle to discourage modding (hackers continually updated modchip designs in an attempt to defeat them), to cut manufacturing costs, and to make
8228-489: Is only available when the user is not watching a movie or playing a game. It uses many shades of green and black for the user interface to be consistent with the physical Xbox color scheme. When the Xbox was released in 2001, the Live service was not online, so the dashboard's Live sections and the network settings sub-menu were not present yet. Xbox Live was released in November 2002, but in order to access it, users had to buy
8415-484: Is the Japanese term for a transmedia franchise. The term media mix gained its circulation in late 1980s and is first used to describe adaptations of Sakyo Komatsu 's Japan Sinks , but the origins of the strategy can be traced back to the 1960s with the proliferation of anime , with its interconnection of media and commodity goods. Some of the earlier popular Japanese franchises such as Vampire Hunter D in
8602-520: The Silicon Valley engineering team behind WebTV , which joined Microsoft after they purchased the rights to the device. Microsoft executive Craig Mundie wanted the project to be led by the WebTV team, who believed the console should be built from the ground-up as an appliance running off Windows CE; however, the DirectX team were adamant about the idea of repurposing PC hardware components, such as
8789-625: The Tomb Raider IP was a factor in the studio's closure several years later. After the critical backlash against The Angel of Darkness , Eidos decided to take production of the Tomb Raider series out of Core Design's hands and give it to another subsidiary studio. Production of the next game was given to Crystal Dynamics in 2003, a studio that had made its name with the Legacy of Kain series. Eidos CEO Ian Livingstone stated that while
8976-544: The Underworld project, but rather shared by other projects, and this led to issues of prioritisation and communication. There were also problems with complicated dependencies and over-ambition. In Underworld , Lara's movements were animated using full motion capture, with Olympic gymnast Heidi Moneymaker providing the character's animations. For the 2013 reboot, an updated version of the Crystal engine called Foundation
9163-566: The Xbox One in 2013 and the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles in 2020. Before the Xbox, Microsoft had found success publishing video games for its Windows PCs, releasing popular titles such as Microsoft Flight Simulator and the massively successful Age of Empires after the creation of DirectX , the application programming interface (API) that allowed for direct access of the computer hardware and bypassing Windows. However,
9350-483: The Xbox series of video game consoles . It was released as Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market on November 15, 2001, in North America, followed by Australia, Europe and Japan in 2002. It is classified as a sixth-generation console , competing with Sony 's PlayStation 2 , Sega 's Dreamcast and Nintendo 's GameCube . It was also the first major console produced by an American company since
9537-491: The fantasy and science fiction genres. Similarly, fantasy, science fiction films and television shows are frequently adapted into animated television series , video games, or both. A media franchise does not have to include the same characters or theme, as the brand identity can be the franchise, like Square Enix 's Final Fantasy or the National Lampoon series , and can suffer from critical failures even if
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#17327727208929724-542: The reboot in 2013. Eight different real-life models have portrayed her at promotional events. In January 2023, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Phoebe Waller-Bridge was set to write a TV show adaptation of the video game franchise for Amazon . It was also reported that this would involve a tie-in video game and film in an interconnected universe, likened to the Marvel Cinematic Universe . The circumstances of her first adventures, along with
9911-423: The 1980s and Pokémon in the late 1990s, acted as benchmarks in the country's transmedia dominance. The latter in particular began as a video game available on Nintendo 's Game Boy , and crossed through the media of television, film, news, and other non-media related realms, such trading cards, merchandise, and more. A number of Japanese media franchises have gained considerable global popularity, and are among
10098-637: The DVD-ROM drive more reliable (some of the early units' drives gave disc-reading errors due to the unreliable Thomson DVD-ROM drives used). Later-generation units that used the Thomson TGM-600 DVD-ROM drives and the Philips VAD6011 DVD-ROM drives were still vulnerable to failure that, respectively, either rendered the consoles unable to read newer discs or caused them to halt the console with an error code usually indicating
10285-486: The DirectX team, argued that using a PC hard drive would set Microsoft's console apart from competitors by allowing for the direct implementation of online access , an argument which Gates sided with. When Gates questioned if PC games could be effectively ported to the new console, Blackley explained that the machine would utilize DirectX hardware, meaning that they could be converted easily. Gates heavily favored this proposition over WebTV's, whose concept relied on Windows CE,
10472-676: The GameCube down to third place in terms of market share. By July 2004, the system had sold 15.5 million units worldwide—10.1 million in North America, 3.9 million in Europe, and 1.5 million in Asia-Pacific—and had a 33% market share in the US. Despite strong sales in North America, Microsoft struggled to make a profit from the Xbox due to its high manufacturing cost. With its initial retail price of $ 299, Microsoft lost about $ 125 for every system sold, which cost $ 425 to manufacture, meaning that
10659-411: The GameCube turned out to be more profitable than the Xbox. Ultimately, Microsoft lost an accumulative total of $ 4 billion from the Xbox, only managing to turn a profit at the end of 2004. While the Xbox represented an overall loss for Microsoft, Gates, Ballmer, and other executives still saw it as a positive result for the company as it brought them into the console marketplace against doubts raised by
10846-466: The Microsoft engineers opted to switch to an Intel CPU, a fact that had not yet been communicated to AMD prior to the reveal. Among the names considered for the new console were a number of acronyms, including "Windows Entertainment Project" (WEP), "Microsoft Total Gaming" (MTG), "Microsoft Interactive Network Device" (MIND), and "Microsoft Interactive Center" (MIC). Also among the names considered
11033-510: The Playstation 2 project in response, which was soon cancelled; the team did not work on the franchise again. Core Design later had the group work on Project Eden . Going forwards the franchise would be led by the new Tomb Raider III team. The group had been drawn from other developers at Core Design and was essentially a totally new team. With Eidos' new vision for the franchise they would aim for annual releases. Core Design's policy at
11220-470: The Tomb Raider , was in development a few months after the reboot's release. In response to criticisms about a lack of classic tombs, more optional and story-based tombs were incorporated into the game. It continued the team's new portrayal of Lara, showing more sides to her character and her growing obsession with discovering the truth. In 2018, Shadow of the Tomb Raider was released to coincide with
11407-562: The Tomb Raider , was released in 2015 on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One . The game was part of a timed exclusivity deal with Microsoft. Versions for the PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows were released in 2016. Another sequel, Shadow of the Tomb Raider , was released worldwide on PlayStation 4 , Xbox One , and Microsoft Windows in 2018. An arcade game based on this incarnation was released by Bandai Namco Amusement in Europe in 2018. Core Design developed two Game Boy Colour titles in
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#173277272089211594-473: The Western market; particularly, it sold poorly in Japan due to its large console size and an overabundance of games marketed towards American audiences instead of Japanese-developed titles. Production of the system was discontinued starting in 2005. The Xbox was the first in an ongoing brand of video game consoles developed by Microsoft, with a successor, the Xbox 360 , launching in November 2005, followed by
11781-520: The Xbox 360, was officially announced on May 12, 2005 on MTV . It was the first next generation system to be announced. It was released in North America on November 22, 2005. Nvidia ceased production of the Xbox's GPU in August 2005, which marked the end of brand-new Xbox production. The last game for the Xbox in Japan was The King of Fighters Neowave released in March 2006, the last Xbox game in Europe
11968-555: The Xbox Live starter kit containing a headset and a subscription. While the Xbox was still being supported by Microsoft, the Xbox Dashboard was updated via Live several times to reduce cheating and add features. The Xbox launched in North America on November 15, 2001. Popular launch games included Halo: Combat Evolved , Project Gotham Racing , and Dead or Alive 3 . All three of these games would go on to sell over
12155-496: The Xbox appeared to marginalize Windows. However, after being reminded that this was a product to compete against Sony, Gates and Ballmer gave the project the go-ahead along with the necessary marketing budget. Another contentious point of design was the addition of Ethernet connectivity rather than simple support for dial-up networking . At this point, most consumer homes had access to Internet connectivity, but social networks had yet to be established which would later demonstrate
12342-559: The Xbox in an interview in late 1999, stating that he wanted the system "to be the platform of choice for the best and most creative game developers in the world". It was later announced officially by Gates in a keynote presentation at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose on March 10, 2000, showing off an early prototype build of the system and a series of demos showcasing its hardware. The presentation and
12529-537: The Xbox outsold the PS2 in the U.S. in April 2004. By its manufacturing discontinuation in 2005, the Xbox had sold a total of 24 million units worldwide, 16 million of which had been sold in North America. These numbers fell short of Microsoft's predicted 50 million units, and failed to match the PlayStation 2's lifetime sales of 106 million units at the time, although it did surpass the GameCube and Dreamcast 's lifetime sales of 21 million and 10.6 units, respectively, though
12716-464: The Xbox soon followed, such as Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell , and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic . Take-Two Interactive 's exclusivity deal with Sony was amended to allow Grand Theft Auto III and its sequels to be published for the Xbox. Many other publishers got into the trend of releasing the Xbox version alongside the PS2 version, instead of delaying it for months. 2004 saw
12903-418: The Xbox was built around standard personal computer components, using variations of Microsoft Windows and DirectX as its operating system to support games and media playback, and featuring a 733 MHz Intel Pentium III CPU and a 233 MHz Nvidia GeForce 3 -based NV2A GPU , the latter two making the Xbox technically more powerful compared to its rivals. The Xbox was the first console to feature
13090-430: The Xbox was high, with Toys 'R' Us and Amazon reporting that online preorders had sold out within just 30 minutes. Microsoft stated that it planned to ship 1–1.5 million units to retailers by the end of the year, followed by weekly shipments of 100,000 units. The launch was one of the most successful in video game history, with unit sales surpassing 1 million after just 3 weeks and rising further to 1.5 million by
13277-425: The Xbox's hard drive. These discs were distributed at retail over seven volumes from 2002 to 2005. The discs are credited as an early iteration of the downloadable content model, with content including additional levels, roster updates for sports games and expanded game types. On November 15, 2002, Microsoft launched its Xbox Live service, allowing subscribers to play online Xbox games with other subscribers around
13464-686: The Xbox's main selling points. Sony countered the Xbox for a short time by temporarily securing PlayStation 2 exclusives for highly anticipated games such as the Grand Theft Auto series and the Metal Gear Solid series as well as Nintendo for the Resident Evil series. Notable third-party support came from Sega , who announced an 11-game exclusivity deal at Tokyo Game Show . Sega released exclusives such as Panzer Dragoon Orta and Jet Set Radio Future , which met with
13651-437: The Xbox, became Xbox 360 launch titles instead. The last game released on the Xbox was Madden NFL 09 , on August 12, 2008. The Xbox Exhibition disc collection was a game demo compilation series from Microsoft Game Studios used to advertise and preview upcoming Xbox games, featuring several playable game demos, game trailers, video content from G4 TV , music videos, and music from indie artists that were downloadable to
13838-401: The ability to play Xbox games through Xbox LIVE has been discontinued since April 15, 2010. It is still possible to play Xbox games with System Link functionality online via both the original console and the Xbox 360 with tunneling software such as XLink Kai . It was announced at E3 2017 that the Xbox One would be gaining support for a limited number of the Xbox's game library . The Xbox
14025-535: The aesthetics of the Legend continuity. The first of these was Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light , followed by Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris in 2014. From 2015 the subseries aimed at the mobile format with Relic Run , and later Lara Croft Go which received critical acclaim. During this period, a second development team was working on a second reboot of the series and character, which put emphasis on
14212-573: The character "epitomises all that's great about video gaming". In an article for 1UP.com , Jeremy Parish said that Lara's sex appeal was the main draw for early fans, a facet Eidos exploited for marketing and attempted to emulate in other products. He cited other writers' statements that her popularity stemmed from player empathy with her ability to survive tough situations, alongside contrasting against weaker female characters such as Princess Peach . However, alongside this praise, she has divided opinion as to her character design and consequent sexuality: she
14399-407: The character of Lara Croft and the concepts behind the Tomb Raider franchise have evolved thematically and in popularity since the first game's release in 1996. The success of the game series led to several commercial tie-ins that further catapulted to cultural icon status, including feature spin-off games, feature films, and comics. Upon release, Tomb Raider became an unexpected success, reaching
14586-407: The company had not entered the home console market of video games, which was dominated at the time by Sony 's PlayStation . Sony was working on its next video game console, the PlayStation 2 (PS2), announced officially to the public on March 2, 1999, and intended for the system to act as a gateway for all types of home entertainment. Sony presented a vision where the console would ultimately replace
14773-433: The company put the name "Xbox" on the list of possible names simply to prove how unpopular the Xbox name would be with consumers. However, "Xbox" proved to be the more popular name on the list and was thus selected as the official name of the product. When the physical design of the controller began, circuit boards for the controller had already been manufactured. Microsoft had asked Sony's supplier, Mitsumi Electric , for
14960-563: The company would have to rely on software sales in order to make any money. According to Robbie Bach, "Probably six months after we shipped, you could see the price curve and do the math and know that we were going to lose billions of dollars." These losses were further exacerbated in April 2002, when Microsoft lowered the retail price of the Xbox even further to $ 199 in order to further driving hardware sales. Microsoft also struggled to compete with Sony's more popular PlayStation 2 console, which generally saw far higher sales numbers, although
15147-573: The company, but Nintendo declined to go further. In 1998, four engineers from Microsoft's DirectX team—Kevin Bachus, Seamus Blackley , Ted Hase and DirectX team leader Otto Berkes —began discussing ideas for a new console which would run off Microsoft's DirectX technology. Nat Brown, the Windows Software Architect at Microsoft, would also become a regular contributor to the project after meeting Hase in November 1998. The project
15334-508: The conclusion of the Survivor trilogy, both Crystal Dynamics and Eidos-Montréal were busy with Marvel properties, and so there were no further Tomb Raider games for several years. In Crystal Dynamics' case, continued support for Marvel's Avengers lasted until 2023. While there were no new games in this period, the franchise was active via other avenues. In 2021, Legendary Television and DJ2 Entertainment announced an anime series set after
15521-432: The console while also granting it a larger processing power than that of most other home consoles. According to Blackley, using PC technology as the foundation for a video game console would eliminate the technological barriers of most home consoles, allowing game creators to expand further on their own creativity without having to worry about hardware limitations. The 4 DirectX team members encountered disagreements with
15708-457: The console, Microsoft would have worked with a third-party computer manufacturer to mass-produce the units. However, the early work showed that this would need to be something that Microsoft would have to produce themselves, making the prospect a far more costly operation; the name "Coffin Box" became associated with the project as there were fears the project would end careers at Microsoft. Further, as
15895-569: The console, and Sony's PlayStation 2 was just going on sale in Japan. Gates was in talks with Sega's late chairman Isao Okawa about the possibility of Xbox compatibility with Dreamcast games, but negotiations fell apart over whether the Dreamcast's SegaNet online service should be implemented. Microsoft also looked to acquire Electronic Arts, Nintendo , Square Enix , and Midway without success. The company did achieve success in convincing developers at Bethesda Game Studios and Tecmo about
16082-610: The console. Having a modified Xbox may also disallow it from accessing Xbox Live, if detected by Microsoft, as it contravenes the Xbox Live Terms of Use , but most modchips can be disabled, allowing the Xbox to boot in a "stock" configuration. Beyond gaming, a modded Xbox can be used as a media center with XBMC4Xbox . There are also distributions of Linux developed specifically for the Xbox, including those based on Gentoo , Debian , Damn Small Linux and Dyne:bolic . Some operating systems ported to Xbox include Linux in
16269-483: The country since its February launch. For the week ending July 18, 2004, the Xbox sold just 272 units, even fewer than the PSOne had sold in the same week. The Xbox did, however, outsell the GameCube for the week ending May 26, 2002. Ultimately, the Xbox had only sold 474,992 units in its lifetime. Factors believed to have contributed to the console's poor market presence included its large physical size, which contrasted
16456-505: The country's emphasis on more compact designs, and a lack of Japanese-developed games to aid consumer interest. Xbox modding is the practice of circumventing the built-in hardware and software security mechanisms of the Xbox video game console. The popularity of the Xbox, as well as (in the United States) its comparatively short 90-day warranty, inspired efforts to circumvent the built-in hardware and software security mechanisms,
16643-460: The critical failure of The Angel of Darkness was a major reason for taking the series away from Core Design, the decision was motivated by their inordinate struggles with developing for the PlayStation 2, and by how many members of the Core team had complained that they were "burnt out" on Tomb Raider . He added that "for a UK company, moving the development of its prized asset from Derby to California
16830-423: The day-in-the-life episodes of the many different Real Housewives series. Documentaries and docuseries are other highlights of the non-fiction branch of media franchises, such as the popular Planet Earth series, which serves as both a film and television transmedia franchise. Xbox (console) The Xbox is a home video game console manufactured by Microsoft that is the first installment in
17017-488: The desktop computer in the home. Microsoft CEO Bill Gates saw the upcoming PS2 as a threat to Microsoft's line of Windows PCs, worrying that the all-encompassing system could eliminate consumer interests in PCs and drive them out of the market. With video games rapidly growing into a massive industry, Gates decided that Microsoft needed to venture into the console gaming market to compete with Sony. Previously, Sega had developed
17204-450: The development team. This released as Tomb Raider: Underworld in 2008. In 2009, the year after the release of Underworld , Eidos was bought by Square Enix and later renamed Square Enix Europe , giving Square Enix ownership of the Tomb Raider franchise. Development of Tomb Raider remained with Crystal Dynamics, now under the new structure. A new subseries began in 2010, billed simply as Lara Croft rather than Tomb Raider while using
17391-407: The different media, regardless of the fact that they are being presented in sometimes completely different ways, such as the shared, interweaving storylines and elements of Spider-Man films, television shows, comics and video games. Espen Aarseth describes the financial logic of cost-recovery for expensive productions by identifying that a single medium launch is a lost opportunity, the timeliness of
17578-766: The division, notably Bungie in June 2000, shortly after their announcement of Halo: Combat Evolved . With Microsoft's acquisition, Halo switched from being a release for personal computers to being an Xbox exclusive release and as a launch time to help drive sales of the console. The Xbox was officially unveiled to the public by Gates and guest professional wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson at CES 2001 in Las Vegas on January 3, 2001. Microsoft announced Xbox's release dates and prices at E3 2001 in May. Most Xbox launch titles were unveiled at E3, most notably Halo and Dead or Alive 3 . The unit's release in November 2001
17765-619: The drive behind her adventures, differ depending on the continuity. In the original continuities, she is on a plane that crashes in the Himalayas: her journey back to civilization against the odds help to begin her journey towards her adult life as an adventuress and treasure hunter. In the original continuity, after her ordeal in the Himalayas, she left behind her privileged life and made a living writing about her exploits as an adventurer, mercenary, and cat burglar. Shortly after these books she
17952-481: The early 2000s. The first, a side-scrolling game simply titled Tomb Raider was released in 2000. The second, its sequel, Tomb Raider: Curse of the Sword , was released in 2001. A Game Boy Advance title called Tomb Raider: The Prophecy was released in 2002. Unlike the first two Game Boy titles, this was developed by Ubi Soft Milan and published by Ubi Soft , adopting an isometric perspective and moving away from
18139-461: The end of 2001. The system also attained one of the highest-ever attachment rates at launch, with over 3 games selling per unit according to the NPD Group . Strong sales were tied in large part to the highly anticipated launch title, Halo: Combat Evolved , which had surpassed sales of 1 million units by April 2002 and attained a 50% attach rate for the console. In 2003, the console had knocked
18326-542: The end of the PlayStation exclusivity deal, the game also released on the Dreamcast . In Japan, both console versions released the following year. Tomb Raider: Chronicles released in 2000 on the same platforms as The Last Revelation , with the PlayStation version's Japanese release as before coming the following year. After a three-year gap, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness was released on Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 2 (PS2) in 2003. The PlayStation 2 version
18513-632: The engine, with the main improvements being to the AI and smoothing out Lara's model. Tomb Raider III underwent major revisions, including rewrites to the graphics engine and improvements in the lighting and AI systems. The engine was given a major overhaul for The Last Revelation . The first five games make use of full-motion video cutscenes. For the first three games, they were primarily used as transitional periods depicting Lara moving from one level to another or one location to another. For Chronicles , fairly minor revisions were made. For The Angel of Darkness ,
18700-407: The environment, along with expanding and improving combat. The gameplay underwent another major change for the 2013 reboot. Gameplay altered from progression through linear levels to navigating an open world, with hunting for supplies and upgrading equipment and weapons becoming a key part of gameplay, yet tombs were mostly optional, and platforming was less present in comparison to combat. The combat
18887-430: The era was used for the Xbox remote, and therefore users wishing to use a universal remote were instructed to utilize RCA DVD remote codes. The Xbox was the first console to feature Dolby Interactive Content-Encoding Technology, which enables real-time Dolby Digital encoding. Previous game consoles could only use Dolby Digital 5.1 during non-interactive "cut scene" playback. The Xbox is based on commodity PC hardware and
19074-474: The events of Shadow of the Tomb Raider for Netflix . The series' title was revealed as Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft and it was released in October 2024. A great many crossovers with other video game franchises were held in the early 2020s, with an article from Fandom Wire identifying 14 franchises that received crossovers, ranging from Fall Guys to Dead by Daylight . These were generally in
19261-696: The events of the game causes Lara to see that her father was right, and that she had needlessly distanced herself from him. She decides to finish his work, and uncover the mysteries of the world. The game's sequels portray Lara Croft in conflict with an ancient organization Trinity, in their quest to obtain supernatural items for their world domination. The gameplay of Tomb Raider is primarily based around an action-adventure framework, with Lara navigating environments and solving mechanical and environmental puzzles, in addition to fighting enemies and avoiding traps. These puzzles, primarily set within ancient tombs and temples, can extend across multiple rooms and areas within
19448-425: The failure of The Angel of Darkness in 2003 to burnout of the second team from annual releases, which stemmed from those directional changes in the late 1990s. The details were ultimately revealed by interviews with former staffers conducted for The Making of Tomb Raider in 2021. After the release of The Angel of Darkness in 2003, Core Design continued working on the franchise for another three years, but both of
19635-725: The fictional worlds they love, adds to the overall narrative the franchise creates through its other media. Marvel's Avenger's Campus park is one of the many franchise-based theme parks created in recent times, following the creation of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studio's Islands of Adventure and Star Wars' Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland and Disney World . Media franchises tend to cross over from their original media to other forms. Literary franchises are often transported to film, such as Nancy Drew , Miss Marple , and other popular detectives , as well as popular comic book superheroes . Television and film franchises are often expanded upon in novels , particularly those in
19822-470: The film The Matrix Reloaded and the video game Enter the Matrix were produced at the same time, using the same actors on the same sets, and released on the same day. Transmedia franchises occasionally release content through certain media that is not canon to the main or greater story that the franchise is built around, meaning that the elements of said content do not truly exist in the main timeline of
20009-453: The first Tomb Raider comic book issue was the best-selling comic book of 1999 and the 2001 film adaptation had the biggest opening weekend (US$ 47.7m) for an action film with a female lead since Aliens in 1986. Multiple video game journalists, including Electronic Gaming Monthly ' s Crispin Boyer in 1997 and Eurogamer 's Martyn Carroll in 2008, have cited the series as a pioneer in
20196-497: The first series of games. Angel of Darkness added stealth elements. For Legend , the control scheme and character movement was redesigned to provide a smooth and fluid experience. One of the key elements present was how buttons for different actions cleanly transitioned into different actions, along with these moves being incorporated into combat to create effects such as stunning or knocking down enemies. Quick-time events were added into certain segments within each level, and many of
20383-555: The focus on the content of the commodity to "overlapping the commodity image with the character image". The book Anime's Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan, by Marc Steinberg, details the evolution of the media mix in Japan. Long-running franchises were common in the early studio era, when Hollywood studios had actors and directors under long-term contract. In such cases, even lead actors are often replaced as they age, lose interest, or their characters are killed. Spin-offs and adaptations of popular pieces of media within
20570-403: The form of cosmetic additions or through Lara appearing as a playable character. Embracer Group purchased a number of Square Enix Europe assets in May 2022 for $ 300 million , including Crystal Dynamics and the Tomb Raider franchise. The studio announced the next main Tomb Raider title in 2022 as a game that would "unify the timelines", and combine elements from all three series, including
20757-402: The franchise in the form of film adaptations , comics and novels . Development of the first Tomb Raider began in 1994; it was released two years later. Its critical and commercial success prompted Core Design to develop a new game annually for the next four years, which put a strain on staff. The sixth game, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness , faced difficulties during development and
20944-429: The franchise's fandom , which is the community of fans that indulge in many of its media and are committed to interacting with and keeping up with other consumers. Large franchise-based fandoms have grown to be even more popular in recent years with the rise of social media platforms, as many fans seek to interact with one another for discussion, debate and even to create their own fan-made pieces of media revolving around
21131-405: The franchise, on websites like tumblr , Reddit and Fandom . In the case of successful transmedia franchises, each different medium should expand the target demographic and fandom, build the interest of the consumers and add to the overarching story and narrative of the franchise itself. A connection between the characters, settings, and other elements of the media franchise do still exist within
21318-415: The franchise. Canon content often times breaks continuity, leading fans to speculate or seek to confirm which media are canon and which are not, which can get confusing if the franchise does not provide an answer themselves since entire media can be non-canon to the greater story, with a popular example occurring. On the other hand, specific episodes, volumes or parts of a series can be canon while others in
21505-461: The game but were cut due to time constraints and the pushing of the publisher Eidos. In the Legend continuity, her mother Amelia was involved in the crash, and she is partially driven by the need to discover the truth behind her mother's disappearance and vindicate her father's theories about Amelia's disappearance. This obsession with the truth is present in Anniversary , and ends up bringing
21692-404: The game needed to be cut, and it was released before the team felt it was ready. It also suffered from crunch and burnout. The game received negative reactions from critics, and was cited by Paramount as the reason for the second Tomb Raider film underperforming. While development of the next title Legend moved to Crystal Dynamics, Core Design continued to work on the franchise. A remake of
21879-400: The grounds that splitting Tomb Raider out across multiple teams could lead to conflict between the projects, and has stated that it led him to "eventually throw in the towel." Eidos pursued annual releases with the new team. The India setting from the expansion disk was adopted for Tomb Raider III , a sequel for the original PlayStation, and the PlayStation 2 title was dropped. Rummery credits
22066-465: The hard drive when in the Xbox dashboard's memory manager or saved during a game. Most Xbox game saves can be copied to the memory unit and moved to another console, but some Xbox saves are digitally signed. It is also possible to save an Xbox Live account on a memory unit, to simplify its use on more than one Xbox. The ports at the top of the controllers could also be used for other accessories, primarily headsets for voice chat via Xbox Live. The Xbox CPU
22253-479: The hard drive, and these songs were used for the custom soundtracks in some games. Unlike the PlayStation 2, which could play movie DVDs without the need for a remote control (although an optional remote was available), the Xbox required an external IR adapter to be plugged into a controller port in order to play movie DVDs. If DVD playback is attempted without the IR sensor plugged in, an error screen will pop up informing
22440-558: The industry, and led to Microsoft's further development of other consoles in the Xbox family. Prior to its Japanese launch in February 2002, many analysts estimated that the Xbox would have trouble competing with the PS2 and the GameCube, its local counterparts in the region, noting its comparatively high price tag, lack of exclusives, and larger size which would not fit as well in Japan's smaller living spaces. Microsoft hoped to ship six million Japanese Xbox consoles by June 2002; however,
22627-400: The intellectual property alongside Eidos in 2022. The franchise focuses on the fictional British archaeologist Lara Croft , who travels around the world searching for lost artefacts and infiltrating dangerous tombs and ruins. Gameplay generally focuses on exploration, solving puzzles, navigating hostile environments filled with traps, and fighting enemies. Additional media has been developed for
22814-473: The magazine), footwear, clothing of every kind, jewelry, housewares (lamps, clocks, bedding, glassware), guitars and gambling, playing cards, pinball machines and pet accessories, billiard balls, bedroom appurtenances, enhancements, plus countless other items of merchandise. Non-fiction media franchises also exist in the television and film media, with reality TV being one of the most well-known examples; ranging from competition shows like The Amazing Race to
23001-493: The main series since. Since 2001, other developers have contributed either to ports of mainline games or with the development of spin-off titles. Tomb Raider , the first entry in the series, was released in 1996 for personal computers (PC), PlayStation and Sega Saturn consoles. The Saturn and PlayStation versions were released in Japan in 1997. Its sequel, Tomb Raider II , launched in 1997, again for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation. A month before release, Eidos finalised
23188-416: The main titles. Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018) was the final main series title to use a proprietary engine, as the franchise is now moving to Unreal Engine 5 . The change reflects a wider industry shift in recent years away from proprietary engines. The first Tomb Raider used a custom-built game engine, as other equivalent engines available to Core Design at the time were not versatile enough to realise
23375-400: The media fictional material is unrelated. Non-fiction literary franchises include the ...For Dummies and The Complete Idiot's Guide to... reference books . An enduring and comprehensive example of a media franchise is Playboy Enterprises , which began expanding well beyond its successful magazine, Playboy , within a few years after its first publication, into such enterprises as
23562-446: The medium, both laying the foundations for and popularising action-adventure and platforming games. Carrol credited the series for bringing video gaming out into the cultural mainstream. In a different article, Eurogamer cited The Angel of Darkness as a pioneer of mixing different video game genres. The public's reactions to the series over the years have conversely had a profound effect upon the series' direction and identity, as noted in
23749-523: The more compact circuit board design. As the development team began to tighten down the design of the Xbox, they got help from Flextronics not only in revising the design but in mass production, creating a factory in Guadalajara , Mexico, for this purpose. Early production units had a high failure rate of around 25%, which Flextronics repaired. Later iterations of the hardware design worked to eliminate these failures. Gates first publicly mentioned
23936-437: The most recognisable video game protagonists, winning accolades and earning places on the Walk of Game and Guinness World Records . The first six Tomb Raider games were developed by Core Design, a British video game development company owned by Eidos Interactive . After the sixth game in the series was released to a mixed reception in 2003, development was transferred to American studio Crystal Dynamics , who have handled
24123-422: The music, and musical elements from around the globe to represent the inhabitants of the game's island location. For Rise of the Tomb Raider , the composer was Bobby Tahouri , who had previously worked as assistant composer on video games and theatrical films. Guardian of Light used no original music, instead using extracts from the music of Legend , Anniversary and Underworld . The music for Temple of Osiris
24310-461: The new system were well-received, impressing developers with both the hard drive and the Ethernet port and appealing to them with the notion of easy-to-use development tools. Microsoft began looking at a series of acquisitions and partnerships to secure content for the console at this time. In early 2000, Sega's Dreamcast sales were diminishing, in part due to Electronic Arts ' decision to bypass
24497-437: The number had ballooned to twenty million current subscribers. On February 5, 2010, it was reported that Xbox Live support for the original Xbox games would be discontinued as of April 14, 2010. Services were discontinued on schedule, but a group of users later known as the "Noble 14" continued to play for almost a month afterwards by simply leaving their consoles on connected to Halo 2 . Prior to launching, anticipation for
24684-453: The original game for PlayStation Portable was in development there, entitled 10th Anniversary . While Eidos had been averse to further Tomb Raider titles from the group, their recent purchase by SCi meant that the decision would now be made by the new parent company, and they were in favour. By 2006 the title was nearly finished, but after Crystal Dynamics sent a demo to SCi showing the first level of Legend running on PSP, 10th Anniversary
24871-406: The original games, Lara utilised a "bulldozer" steering set-up, with two buttons pushing her forward and back and two buttons steering her left and right, and in combat Lara automatically locked onto enemies when they came within range. The camera automatically adjusts depending on Lara's action, but defaults to a third-person perspective in most instances. This basic formula remained unchanged through
25058-481: The original score, along with expanding them. For Underworld , Folmann handled the main theme while Colin O'Malley handled the rest of the soundtrack, which featured far less looping music than Legend . The 2013 reboot was scored by Jason Graves , who had become known through his work on the Dead Space franchise. Along with his orchestral style, he created a special instrument to create discordant sounds within
25245-447: The original, but the development team were burned out by release due to the extreme crunch policy at Core Design. The vision for the franchise in late 1997 involved an expansion pack for Tomb Raider II , entitled The Further Adventures of Lara Croft , followed by a survival game called Tomb Raider III to be released two or three years later for the PlayStation 2 . Eidos were initially behind this direction, but later were driven by
25432-446: The popularity of online console gaming, and in particular first-person shooters . The Xbox had a record-breaking launch in North America, selling 1.5 million units before the end of 2001, aided by the popularity of one of the system's launch titles, Halo: Combat Evolved , which sold a million units by April 2002. The system went on to sell a worldwide total of 24 million units, including 16 million in North America; however, Microsoft
25619-472: The power of the Xbox over the PS2, lining up The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Dead or Alive 3 as Xbox console-exclusives. Around this same time, Microsoft announced it was rebranding its Games Group, which had been focused on developing games for Windows, to the Microsoft Games division to make titles for both Windows and the Xbox. Microsoft began acquiring a number of studios to add to
25806-423: The production and release is more important than its integrity, the releases should raise brand awareness and the cross-ability of the work is critical for its success. American Idol was a transmedia franchise from its beginnings, with the first season winner Kelly Clarkson signing with RCA Records and having the release of A Moment Like This becoming a #1 hit on Billboard Hot 100. The success resulted in
25993-464: The projects under development in that period were cancelled. A sequel titled The Lost Dominion was undergoing preliminary development that year, but the negative reception of The Angel of Darkness caused it and a wider trilogy to be scrapped. With Eidos's approval, Core Design then began development of an updated edition of the first game for the PSP called Tomb Raider: 10th Anniversary in late 2005, with
26180-410: The puzzles were based around sophisticated in-game physics. Anniversary , while going through the same locales of the original game, was rebuilt using the gameplay and environmental puzzles of Legend . For Underworld , the gameplay was redesigned around a phrase the staff had put to themselves: "What Could Lara Do?". Using this set-up, they created a greater variety of moves and greater interaction with
26367-504: The release of Legend , the series has picked up in terms of sales, popularity, and critical acclaim. The 2013 reboot sold 11 million units, becoming the most commercially successful Tomb Raider title to date. As of 2021, the series has sold over 85 million units worldwide. In addition to the games' success, the 2001 film adaptation grossed $ 275 million, making it the highest-grossing video game adaptation until being overtaken in 2010 by Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time . Additionally,
26554-456: The release of highly rated exclusives Fable and Ninja Gaiden : both games would become big hits for the Xbox. Later that year, Halo 2 was released and became the highest-grossing release in entertainment history, making over $ 125 million in its first day and became the best-selling Xbox game worldwide. Halo 2 became Xbox Live's third killer app after MechAssault & Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 . That year Microsoft made
26741-489: The release of the Atari Jaguar in 1993. The console was announced in March 2000. With the release of the PlayStation 2, which featured the ability to playback CD-ROMs and DVDs in addition to playing games, Microsoft became concerned that game consoles would threaten the personal computer as an entertainment device for living rooms. Whereas most games consoles to that point were built from custom hardware components,
26928-525: The same medium are not, such as the fact that only some of the Battlestar Galactica comics are canon, with a large amount of them breaking the continuity of the main story. In Japanese culture and entertainment, media mix ( wasei-eigo : メディアミックス , mediamikkusu ) is a strategy to disperse content across multiple representations: different broadcast media , gaming technologies, cell phones, toys, amusement parks , and other methods. It
27115-408: The secrets of immortality, eventually resulting in an apparent suicide. Lara distanced herself from her father's memory, believing like many others that his obsession had caused him to go mad. After studying at university, Lara gets an opportunity to work on an archaeology program, in the search for the mythic kingdom of Yamatai . The voyage to find the kingdom results in a shipwreck on an island, which
27302-482: The series, her shared traits are her origins as the only daughter and heir of the aristocratic Croft family. She is portrayed as intelligent, athletic, elegant, fluent in multiple languages, and determined to fulfil her own goals at any cost. She has brown eyes and brown hair worn in a braid or ponytail . The character's classic outfit consists of a turquoise singlet, light brown shorts, calf-high boots, and tall white socks. Recurring accessories include fingerless gloves,
27489-509: The side-scrolling platform-based gameplay. From 2010 to 2015, a subseries simply titled Lara Croft was in development at Crystal Dynamics, with different gameplay than the main series and existing in its own continuity. The first game, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light , was released in 2010 as a downloadable title for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. It was followed by Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris , released for retail and download in 2014 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Both titles were released in
27676-413: The success of Tomb Raider , work began on a sequel. Gard was no longer given full creative control, and it was stated by development staff that he was both saddened and disappointed by the use of Lara Croft's sex appeal in marketing. Gard left Core Design in 1997 to found his own gaming company Confounding Factor , and was replaced by Stuart Atkinson. Tomb Raider II proved a larger commercial success than
27863-497: The system had only sold a total of 190,000 units in the region by April of that year, two months after the system's launch in February. For the week ending April 14, 2002, the Xbox sold only 1,800 units, considerably less than the PS2 and GameCube, and failed to see a single title reach the top 50 best-selling video games in Japan. In November 2002, the Xbox chief in Japan stepped down, leading to further consultations about Xbox's future, which by that point had only sold 278,860 units in
28050-439: The team's vision. The engine was designed by Paul Douglas, who handled the game's artificial intelligence (AI) and the three-dimensional (3D) graphics. The choice of a 3D game was influenced by the team's opinion that the game type was under-represented when compared to first-person shooters such as Doom . Its 3D style meant multiple elements were difficult to implement, including the AI and camera control. Another noted aspect
28237-455: The time involved years-long crunch periods, which placed strain on the second team and ultimately led them to burn out in the same way the first did. For this reason, and the feeling that they had exhausted the series' potential, the team tried to kill off Lara at the end of the fourth game, Revelations . Eidos insisted that the series continue, and so Chronicles was developed by the Tomb Raider team while an additional group made preparations for
28424-478: The top of sales charts and remaining for a time. It went on to sell over 7 million units worldwide. Tomb Raider II was a greater commercial success, with debut sales higher than the first game and total worldwide sales of 8 million units. Despite varying critical receptions, series sales continued to be strong until the release of Chronicles , which sold 1.5 million units. While The Angel of Darkness met with initial strong sales, it failed to meet expectations. Since
28611-466: The transition to Playstation 2 with The Angel of Darkness . The Chronicles team strongly disliked being forced to continue the franchise, with the lead animator enjoying creating new death animations for Lara on that basis. The game was poorly received, with reviewers suggesting the series was growing stale. During this period, multiple handheld titles were developed by both Core Design and third-party developers. The production of The Angel of Darkness
28798-543: The user of the need for the Xbox DVD Playback Kit. The said kit included the IR sensor and a remote control (unlike the PS2, the Xbox controller could not control DVD playback). Said remote was manufactured by Thomson (which also manufactured optical drives for the console) and went on sale in late 2002, which meant a modified version of the remote design used by the RCA , GE and ProScan consumer electronics of
28985-467: The viability of this decision. The Xbox leads argued that with the planned Xbox Live functionality, the Ethernet port would help friends be able to play after they have graduated from schools and colleges and moved across the country. Throughout the console's prototyping, Microsoft was working with AMD for the CPU on the system. According to Blackley, just prior to the system's reveal in January 2001,
29172-399: The work of Core Design. In this timeline, Lara would be a seasoned adventurer. This instalment will use Unreal Engine 5 , and will be published by Amazon Games . Tomb Raider Reloaded , a mobile game, was published by Square Enix London Mobile in 2023. A collection of remasters of the first three games in the original Core Design Tomb Raider series titled Tomb Raider I–III Remastered
29359-563: The world and download new content directly to the system's hard drive . The online service works only with a broadband Internet connection. In its first week of operation, Xbox Live received 100,000 subscriptions, and further grew to 250,000 subscribers within two months of the service's launch. In July 2004, Microsoft announced that Xbox Live had reached one million subscribers; in July 2005, membership reached two million, and by July 2007 there were more than three million subscribers. By May 2009,
29546-507: The world to the brink of destruction during the events of Underworld . Her father is referred to as Lord Henshingly Croft in the original games and Lord Richard Croft in the Legend continuity. The Lara Croft subseries take place within their own separate continuity, devoting itself to adventures similar to earlier games while the main series goes in a different stylistic direction. In the 2013 reboot continuity, Lara's mother vanished at an early age, and her father became obsessed with finding
29733-477: The world's highest-grossing media franchises . For example, Pokémon 's penetration into the American market of the franchise along with others of Japanese origin, such as Yu-Gi-Oh! , gave rise to the recognition of what is variously called transmedia storytelling , crossmedia, transmediation , media synergy, etc. Researchers argue that the 1963 Tetsuwan Atomu marked a shift in Japanese marketing from
29920-548: Was Xiaolin Showdown released in June 2007, and the last game in North America was Madden NFL 09 released in August 2008. Support for out-of-warranty Xbox consoles was discontinued on March 2, 2009. Support for Xbox Live on the console ended on April 15, 2010. The Xbox 360 supports a limited number of the Xbox's game library if the player has an official Xbox 360 Hard Drive. Xbox games were added up until November 2007. Xbox game saves cannot be transferred to Xbox 360, and
30107-421: Was leaked in 2020. The user interface for the Xbox is called the Xbox Dashboard. It features a media player that can be used to play music CDs, rip CDs to the Xbox's built-in hard drive and play music that has been ripped to the hard drive; it also lets users manage game saves, music, and downloaded content from Xbox Live, and lets Xbox Live users sign in, customize, and manage their account. The dashboard
30294-598: Was "DirectX Box", referring to the system's reliance on Direct X. At one point, Hase jokingly came up with the names "XXX-Box" and "DirectXXX-Box" as a nod to the system's higher volume of adult content compared to Sony or Nintendo 's consoles. "DirectX Box" was quickly shortened to "Xbox" through an e-mail conversation, and was ultimately favored by the development team, though a number of spelling variants were tossed around, such as xBox, XboX, and X-box. Microsoft's marketing department did not like this name, suggesting "11-X" or "Eleven-X" as alternatives. During focus testing ,
30481-440: Was a big decision to make but, as it turned out, absolutely the right one to make". One of the main priorities for both Eidos and Crystal Dynamics was to regain the fanbase's trust in the brand, along with helping the series reclaim the status and selling power it had before The Angel of Darkness ' release. Their main goal was to put Lara back inside tombs, with their physics-based engine enabling more intricate puzzles. Legend
30668-686: Was awarded "Blunder of the Year" by Game Informer in 2001, a Guinness World Record for the biggest controller in Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2008, and was ranked the second-worst video game controller ever (behind the Atari Jaguar controller) by IGN editor Craig Harris. The "Controller S" (codenamed "Akebono"), a smaller, lighter Xbox controller, was originally the standard Xbox controller only in Japan, designed for users with smaller hands. The "Controller S"
30855-458: Was beset by problems from an early stage, with the team wanting to create a grander game to compete with contemporary action-adventure games. When the Chronicles team came back over to work on The Angel of Darkness , they found that production had completely "gone off the rails", with the entire project having been scrapped and restarted once already. Under pressure from Eidos, key sections of
31042-453: Was cancelled and Crystal Dynamics were charged with making a remake of the original instead. One of the key reasons for this was the fact that Crystal Dynamics had stronger capabilities to do a cross-platform launch. The decision "went down like a cup of cold sick" at Core Design. The studio attempted to reskin the title as a National Treasure or Indiana Jones game in the wake of the decision, but these did not come to fruition. The loss of
31229-578: Was codenamed "Midway," in reference to the Battle of Midway during World War II in which Japan was decisively defeated by American forces, as a representation of Microsoft's desire to surpass Sony in the console market. The DirectX team held their first development meeting on March 30, 1999, in which they discussed issues such as getting a PC to boot at a quicker pace than usual. The console would run off Windows 2000 using DirectX 8.1 , which would allow PC developers to easily transition into making games for
31416-439: Was composed by Nathan McCree . He created the original theme music after having discussions with Gard about the character of Lara Croft. Having decided to use Classical English music as an inspiration, he decided to create something simple for the theme song. Its simplicity made rearrangements and orchestrations easy. For his work on the first three Tomb Raider games, he was given fairly minimal briefs, and for Tomb Raider III he
31603-425: Was conducted for the PlayStation version to allow for a disk swap after launching the base game. A segment from issue 64 of GamesMaster informally referred to the expansion as Tomb Raider 2.5 and stated that it would have seven levels. A full sequel, then billed as Tomb Raider III was planned to have a two year development period and release on the PlayStation 2. This game would have had a remote island setting and
31790-498: Was considered a failure at release. This prompted Eidos to switch development duties to Crystal Dynamics , which has been the series' primary developer since. Other developers have contributed to spin-off titles and ports of mainline entries. Tomb Raider games have sold over 100 million copies worldwide by 2024. while the entire franchise generated close to $ 1.2 billion in revenue by 2002. The series has received generally positive reviews from critics, and Lara Croft has become one of
31977-602: Was created for the game. Motion capture was again used for this title. An updated version of the Foundation engine was used again for Rise of the Tomb Raider . Lara's hair movements were made more realistic using a technology called TressFX in Tomb Raider and PureHair in Rise of the Tomb Raider . The Foundation engine remained in use for the third entry in the reboot series, Shadow of the Tomb Raider , and featured new graphical enhancements from developer Eidos-Montréal . Both
32164-510: Was disowned by her family. In The Last Revelation , Lara was caught in a collapsing pyramid at the game's end, leaving her fate unknown: this was because the staff, exhausted from four years of non-stop development, wanted to move on from the character. Chronicles was told through a series of flashbacks at a wake for Lara, while The Angel of Darkness was set an unspecified time after The Last Revelation , with Lara revealed to have survived. The circumstances of her survival were originally part of
32351-591: Was held on the prior night as part of the grand opening of the flagship store of Toys 'R' Us at Times Square in New York City, in which 1,000 systems were shipped to the store to kick off sales. Bill Gates was present at the event, personally selling the first Xbox console and greeting people in line and playing games with them at the numerous display units present. In 2002, the Independent Television Commission (ITC) banned
32538-483: Was later released in other territories by popular demand and by 2002 replaced the standard controller in the Xbox's retail package, with the larger original controller remaining available as an accessory. The Xbox runs a custom operating system which is based on a heavily modified version of Windows 2000 . It exports APIs similar to those found in Microsoft Windows , such as Direct3D . Its source code
32725-622: Was partially hampered by the impact of the September 11 attacks on travel, as Microsoft could not travel to the Guadalajara facility to help test units. They were able to arrange to ship the units locally instead of testing at Microsoft facilities to have them ready for launch. The system was officially launched at midnight on November 15, 2001, three days before the subsequent launch of the Nintendo GameCube . A special event
32912-418: Was privately settled on February 6, 2003. The Xbox includes a standard AV cable which provides composite video and monaural or stereo audio to TVs equipped with RCA inputs. European Xboxes also included an RCA jack to SCART converter block and the standard AV cable. An 8 MB removable solid-state memory card can be plugged into the controllers, onto which game saves can either be copied from
33099-466: Was redesigned to be similar to the Uncharted series: the previous reticle-based lock-on mechanics were replaced by a free-roaming aim. Rise of the Tomb Raider built on the 2013 reboot's foundation, adding dynamic weather systems, reintroducing swimming, and increasing the prevalence of non-optional tombs with more platforming elements. The concept for Tomb Raider originated in 1994 at Core Design,
33286-472: Was released in February 2024 for Nintendo Switch , PlayStation 4 , PlayStation 5 , Windows , Xbox One , and Xbox Series X/S . The three games were also re-released in their original form for Evercade in July 2024, as a single cartridge. A remastered collection of The Last Revelation , Chronicles , and The Angel of Darkness developed by Core Design titled Tomb Raider IV–VI Remastered will be released in February 2025. The original Tomb Raider theme
33473-500: Was released in Japan that same year. The next entry, Tomb Raider: Legend , was released worldwide in 2006 for the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox , Xbox 360 , PlayStation Portable (PSP), GameCube , Game Boy Advance (GBA) and Nintendo DS . The Xbox 360, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable versions were released in Japan the same year. A year later, a remake of the first game titled Tomb Raider: Anniversary
33660-475: Was released worldwide in 2007 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360 and the Wii . The next entry, Tomb Raider: Underworld , was released in 2008 on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 (PS3), PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Wii and DS. The PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360 and Wii versions were released in Japan in 2009. In 2011, The Tomb Raider Trilogy was released for PlayStation 3 as
33847-599: Was the first video game console to feature a built-in hard disk drive , used primarily for storing game saves and content downloaded from Xbox Live. This eliminated the need for separate memory cards (although some older consoles, such as the Amiga CD32 , used internal flash memory, and others, such as the TurboGrafx-CD , Sega CD , and Sega Saturn , had featured built-in battery backup memory prior to 2001). An Xbox user could rip music from standard audio CDs to
34034-422: Was the multi-layered levels, as compared to equivalent 3D action-adventure games of the time which were limited to a flat-floor system. Lara's movements were hand-animated and coordinated rather than created using motion capture . The reason for this was that the team wanted uniformity in her movement, which was not possible with motion capture technology of the time. For Tomb Raider II , minor upgrades were made to
34221-550: Was ultimately the studio's final title in 2007. Core Design—by then named Rebellion Derby—shut down in 2010. A January 2006 build of 10th Anniversary was leaked online in 2020, and remains available on the Internet Archive . Lara Croft is the main protagonist and playable character of the video game series. She travels around the world in search of many forgotten artefacts and locations, frequently connected to supernatural powers. While her biography has changed throughout
34408-477: Was unable to make a steady profit off the console, which had a manufacturing price far more expensive than its retail price, despite its popularity, losing over $ 4 billion during its market life. The system outsold the GameCube and the Sega Dreamcast , but was vastly outsold by the PlayStation 2, which had sold over 155 million units by the system's end of production. It also underperformed outside of
34595-495: Was well received, and was the first game in a rebooted trilogy. After Legend was finished, the team decided to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the series by remaking the original game, rebuilding the environments and redesigning the story to fit in with the events and gameplay of Legend . Alongside the development of Anniversary , an entry for seventh-generation hardware was in development, although it used established gaming architecture from Legend and this caused problems for
34782-422: Was working on the game as a freelancer as he had left the company. For The Last Revelation , Peter Connelly replaced Nathan McCree as the main composer, using McCree's music as a basis for his work. He composed the opening theme for The Last Revelation , saying that the opening melody came to him out of the blue, and added Egyptian motifs to fit in with the game's setting. Chronicles was originally going to have
34969-510: Was written by Will Roget II, who had originally worked on licensed video games including Star Wars: The Old Republic . Temple of Osiris was the first title in the Lara Croft subseries to have an original score, using Egyptian and Middle Eastern musical elements while creating a new main theme that could be used in future Lara Croft games. Over the lifetime of the franchise, four custom proprietary game engines have been built to support
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