Yoichi Wada Explains Why Sleeping Dogs, Hitman: Absolution and Tomb Raider Disappointed Square Enix

Some time ago, it was revealed that Square Enix president Yoichi Wada would be leaving the company after 13 years and a poor fiscal year, according to the publisher.

SquEnix’s fourth quarter finished on March 31 and the company announced sales figures for Sleeping Dogs, Hitman Absolution and Tomb Raider, which under delivered in the publisher’s eyes. Tomb Raider shifted 3.4 million copies, Hitman Absolution sold 3.6 million and brand new IP Sleeping Dogs found itself in 1.75 new homes around the world.

Through CVG, we’ve learned that the outgoing director has been spilling the beans on what the company expected from these titles. Announcing that fiscal 2013 was Square Enix’s first attempt at solely focusing on the West, Wada revealed that sales figures didn’t match up with the good Metacritic scores their games achieved:

“Let’s talk about Sleeping Dogs: we were looking at selling roughly 2-2.25 million units in the European/North American market based on game content, genre and Metacritic scores.

In the same way, game quality and Metacritic scores led us to believe that Hitman had the potential to sell 4.5-5 million units, and 5-6 million units for Tomb Raider in European/North American and Japanese markets combined.”

The industry is venturing toward very dangerous waters. With the next generation on the horizon, and games potentially costing even more than they do now, projections for AAA titles will only enlarge, which will then bring about more disappointment, no doubt.