Published in Gaming

Square Enix titles miss sales targets

by on27 March 2013

Despite selling millions of copies

Despite selling millions of copies, Square Enix has missed its sales targets. All three of the publisher’s major releases, Sleeping Dogs, Hitman: Absolution, and the new Tomb Raider, have not performed as well as well as the company expected.

The new Tomb Raider reboot is on track to sell 3.4 million copies by March 2013, and Hitman: Absolution has moved 3.6 million copies, while Sleeping Dogs has sold over 1.75 million copies, but this is still far from the almost 19 million HD games that the company had forecast to sell. (These numbers apparently do not include digital download sales.)

The problems for the company don’t stop there, as Square Enix believes that its marketing efforts in North America were ineffective, with two-thirds of these sales coming from outside of North America. Sleeping Dogs, which was rescued from Activision, did not sell nearly as well as expected, and this looks to have had a significant impact on the company’s sales numbers, as well.

The sluggish North American sales certainly hurt the publisher. All three titles received decent reviews, so it was not the quality of the games that was an issue. Square Enix will have to invest in a revised marketing strategy in North America going forward, but it is unclear what steps the company will take to help build their North American sales.

Yoichi Wada CEO of Square Enix will step down from leading the company due to the financial loss experienced by the company. Yosuke Matsuda will be taking over as the new CEO of the company after approval by the shareholders in June. Square Enix expects the failure of the console business to meet its sales targets and the flat performance in the company’s arcade business to impact the company and lead to a net loss for the year.

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