With the Tomb Raider franchise being completely revitalised and Hitman about to be transformed into a movie series this coming November, SCi and Eidos have confirmed that new video game iterations of both will be winging their way onto next generation consoles in the very near future.

Tomb Raider hit a bit of a lull after the woeful Angel of Darkness, but has been completely turned around since it changed development hands and Tomb Raider: Legend turned out to be a fantastic new outing for Lara Croft. The recent remake of the original Tomb Raider, which coincided with the franchise’s anniversary, has also been critically acclaimed and proved to be a massive retail success with the Wii version yet to even hit the market.

Therefore, Eidos parent company SCi Entertainment confirmed in its fiscal year-end results today that it has sequels in the works for both brands, as well as for other recent hits:

“We are looking forward with much anticipation to the sequels to Just Cause and Battlestations: Midway, which are already in development, and new versions of world-leading franchises Tomb Raider and Hitman.”
- chief executive Jane Cavanagh said in SCi’s year-end report.

Unfortunately, for the company, revenues are lower than the year before, with £30 million ($60.8 million) in terms of losses before tax, in comparison to a profit of £8.1 million ($16.4 million) last year. This has been attributed in part to the fact that many PlayStation 2 games are being slashed in price, meaning the publisher had to allocate £14.5 million ($29.4 million) for price protection charges to counter-act the price reductions. Another finger was pointed at Sony as well, since the PlayStation 3 has underperformed so much:

“The Board continues to believe in the long-term commercial success of PlayStation 3 but believes this may take more time than originally forecast by Sony. The Board is of the opinion that the key driver to the acceleration of the installed base of PlayStation 3 will be a further hardware price cut.”
- SCi chairman Tim Ryan said in the report.

Finally, with regards to the recent mutterings about SCi Entertainment being acquired, all that was stated was that discussions are still on-going and numerous sets of talks are currently taking place.

Stay tuned for more updates here on Playstatic…