Only thing you had to do is Google "Tomb Raider Sales'...
That's the first thing you will see. This news is from
April 2015! So almost 2 years ago.
Since then only on Steam Tomb Raider reboot sold more than 1.5m copies. And i don't even want to add PS4/XB1/PS3/XB sales in last two years. You do the math...
Google search results aren't a source of information, so I'll do the maths instead for you, since you don't want to spend time actually researching facts.
Tomb Raider II
This article is from 2006, 10 years ago, GameState got access to the sales data for the best selling games up to that point. Tomb Raider II was included within the top 20.
See that? 8 million copies sold up to 2006 on just the PS1. This does not include Steam, GOG and all of the retail PC sales. But since I know you're bias, I'll do the maths for you again.
As of today,
according to Steamspy, Tomb Raider II has sold
roughly 721,580 copies for all of the Steam sales.
As for GOG, now they don't share public data for sales, but since TRII has been on sale on that website at least one year longer than on Steam, it is safe to assume it sold around the same amount since it always sells crazy over there and is one of the oldest games to be sold on that website. So for parity, and to be kind to you, I will say GOG sold around 500,000 copies.
As for the retail (physical) PC copies as of 14th January this year (2017),
it has sold a total of 2.29m copies. I know that this website isn't entirely accurate either, so I'll trim the sales down to just 2m copies.
(it seems like the link is ***'d out, so just Google VGc.)
So far that is 10m copies sold, not including PSN sales of TRII and the sales of the Golden Mask re-release, which have probably sold hundreds of thousands of copies alone.
So altogether, that is
at the very least 10.5+m copies sold as of today.
Tomb Raider 2013
I'll start by linking
this copy-paste article many sites used, you included. It is the "8.5m copies sold including the Definitive Edition", which is already less than 10.5. However, to be fair to your bias, I'll say articles like this aren't trustworthy because they all
have no source.
It is also interesting to note that in 2013, the game had
SHIPPED and not SOLD 3.4m copies.
So, for the sales themselves.
Steamspy reports 4.5m copies sold roughly, and I say roughly, as numbers aren't entirely accurate.
Let's look at the sales for the PS3, 360, PS4 and X1 (including the Definitive Edition):
Xbox 360 :
1.89m
PS3 :
2.42m
PS4 :
1.40m
X1 :
0.62m
Remember, this website isn't entirely accurate, so like with TRII, I'll trim the sales down and round them.
(it seems like the links are ***'d out, so just Google VGc.)
1.89m > 1.8
2.42 > 2.4
1.40 > 1.4
0.62 > 0.5
1.8 + 2.4 + 1.4 + 0.5 = 6.1 + 4.5 = 10.6.
Now, before you start typing your reply, that's a
cap of 10.6m.
Tomb Raider II sold at
least 10.5m, not including accurate sales from GOG, PSN and its Golden Mask re-releases (they've all probably sold well over 2m combined considering how much they are played and sold).
So, the final analysis:
Tomb Raider 2013
Maximum of
10.6m if we were to trust VGc.
Tomb Raider II
Minimum of
10.5m if were to trust VGc and not include PSN, GOG and GM re-release sales.
And this is even considering that I rounded the sales of TRII down even more than the sales of 2013.
Also, posting a Gamespot or Eurogamer article, without them sourcing info themselves, cannot be wholesomely trusted, at least with sites like Steamspy we have some idea.
But as I've said, more people these days play games moreso than people did in 1997. So ratio is important here, we should compare the total amount of people who owned a PS1 and PC then the sales of TR2 for PS1 and PC.
Then do the same for TR 2013 but with PS3, 360, PS4, X1 and PC. If you ever took the time to do this maths your fractions will be simplified down and see that TRII without a doubt has a higher proportion of sales to owners.
And finally, seems NeoGAF doesn't like VGc (won't say its full name or post images from it), but you should know what it is if ya
Google it.
...
