Square Enix's CEO Resigns

[JohnHeatz]

Yoichi Wada, Square Enix's president and CEO has resigned to his position. With the end of the fiscal year, with takes place on March 31, the disappointing numbers from some of the biggest games and the low amount of profit (which right now is on negative) are the main aspects which made him resign.

The company is looking for a big change, and the time for it has started with Wada leaving his position.

Between the before mentioned numbers, it is said that Square Enix was expecting way more sales on games such as Sleeping Dogs, with 1.75 million copies sold; Tomb Raider, with 3.4 million of sold copies; and Hitman: Absolution, with 3.6 million copies; yet, these are not meeting the expectations so far.

"In particular, NA sales force was ineffective, ending up with two-thirds of number of units sold in Europe. Moreover, price pressure was strong, which forced spending additional channel costs such as price protection."

This has lead to a huge loss of money, as Square Enix had expected that, by this time, they should've had a 3 to 5 billion yen profit, while reality is that they are 13 billion yen under this, with a negative $138 million USD.

It was said by Square Enix that Yosuke Matsuda is expected to be its new president, confirmation of this is to happen in June.

"In view of the rapidly changing environment of the game businesses, the company has decided to implement major reforms and restructuring in its development policy, organizational structure, some business models, and others"

Comparing previous business years to the current one, the numbers are quite conclusive, as this year they are expecting a net loss of 13 billion yen (as stated before), which equals to around £91 million / $138 million, while last year they reported a 6 billion yen (equal to £42 million / $64 million) profit.

[PortalDark]

some rumors on blogs are saying new CEO, Yosuke Matsuda, could bring SqareEnix back to be SquareSoft and maybe go back to Nintendo(not exclusives but not leaving it aside)

[JohnHeatz]

Yosuke is currently just nominated to become the new president of Square Enix, nothing is yet written and won't be until June though.

[jupister]

This is some bullshit.. those games sold great!! Why am i not saying anything about the japanese game titles that totally ******* tanked? A bit rough to put all the blame on these really good selling western games.

[JohnHeatz]

That's the way many of us think, actually, yet, they are not meeting the sales Square Enix -internally- was looking for

[PortalDark]

Originally Posted by jupister

This is some bullshit.. those games sold great!! Why am i not saying anything about the japanese game titles that totally ******* tanked? A bit rough to put all the blame on these really good selling western games.

the issue here is that western sales over RPGs are not as good as they are on Japan
We, the "western" market have been labeled by Japan as not good gamers
It is true, under their vision. These days jRPG have been very popular, still they dont reach their sale expectations
One thing is sure. Even if they fail on America, SquareEnix can easily exist with Japan sales

[kinkerhorse]

SquareSoft FTW~