It’s a bad month to be the CEO of a struggling company, it seems. Hot on the heels of John Reccitiello’s resignation as EA’s CEO, Square Enix’s CEO Yoichi Wada has stepped down on account of the “extraordinary” financial loss the company has suffered.
The company is suspected to sustain losses of 10 billion Yen (or $105 million) and as such, Square plans to do a major restructuring of key areas of its corporate layout. Part of the reason that Square is in such trouble is the lower than expected sales of Sleeping Dogs, Hitman: Absolution and Tomb Raider. This is wild considering that both Hitman and Tomb Raider sold more than three million units a piece, but both came in under their forecasted sales targets. Square expected their North American and European sales to hit 14.9 million copies across all three games by now, so they are a good deal under that target.
What do you guys think about this? Is it wild that Square Enix needed to sell 14.9 million copies of these games to stay afloat? What do you think will happen to Square down the line? More Final Fantasy games more often? Will they ditch Western development completely?
Source – Polygon, Square Enix and Eurogamer