Yoichi Wada, president and CEO of Square Enix, has resigned his post due to a low fiscal year forecast, low sales of some of the company's expected big hits, and the fact that the industry has and is changing.
Even though Wada's decision has be approved at an upcoming shareholder's meeting in June and the following board of director's meeting, it's expected that it will be passed without objection since the company is expecting a 13 billion yen ($138 million) loss when the fiscal year ends on March 31st. The original fiscal year forecast projected a 3.5 billion profit.
According to Gamasutra, Tomb Raider, HItman: Absolution, and Sleeping Dogs did not sell as well as expected, therefore causing the drop in the fiscal year forecast. As a result, the company is currently undergoing a reorganization that will be put on the books this fiscal year.
While we don't know what Square Enix was originally expecting with these games, they have predicted that by March 31st, Tomb Raider will have sold 3.4 million copies, Hitman: Absolution 3.6 million, and Sleeping Dogs 1.75 million. None of these predictions include games downloaded.
Call me crazy, but the fact that Tomb Raider hasn't been out for a month yet and they're expecting 3.4 million sales sounds fantastic to me. I suppose we really are living in the day and age that due to the large budgets, AAA games must sell at least 4 million units within the first couple of months to be considered a success.
