One thing I don't understand about the Tomb Raider deal. I get why Microsoft wanted it. It's in a genre with an audience that skews heavily Playstation and towards Europe and one where they are lacking a compelling IP of their own. It's where the majority of sales are. They want that audience hence the exclusivity deal. It didn't work out, but I can understand why they'd do it.
But if they're going to do it to atract a certain audience, why not do it properly? The bundle was supposedly exclusive to Best Buy in America? And isn't even present in the region (EU) they're trying to court with said deal? If they weren't going to bother to try everything needed to gain the audience they wanted, why bother with the deal in the first place?
On top of other avenues that other people said, it's important to remember this deal was cemented latest by July/August 2013. Last year, before MS's tier-2 launch and MS's 349 AssCreed holiday madness.
I sincerely believe that at that point of time, MS was still confident that they had a small, a very small chance at beating PS4. Use their raw American market muscle to wrestle leadership from Sony, and make a grand push with their exclusives that appeal to European regions, etc.
However, last holiday proves that even with XB1s available in Europe, the large, large majority doesn't care for XB1 and PS4 overwhelms despite strong gain by MS in US.
Sometime from then till now, I think MS has accepted Europe is a lost cause, Tomb Raider or not, and has decided that safeguarding their US/UK bank is more important that divesting resources for whatever scraps they can gain in Europe.
