[09/04] Square Enix Reveal Sales Expectations

[Steve-O]

Square-Enix has revealed exactly how many copies of Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs and Hitman it expected to sell, after announcing that they all failed to hit targets last month.

Astonishingly, the publisher hoped to sell between 5 and 6 million copies of Tomb Raider in its first month, which would have placed it amongst some of the fastest-selling games ever. It managed 3.6 million, which by most standards is an extremely impressive launch.


Hitman: Absolution and Sleeping Dogs also underperformed. "We were looking at selling roughly 2-2.5 million in the EU/NA market based on its game content, genre and Metacritic scores," reads the transcript of Square-Enix's latest financial briefing. "In the same way, game quality and Metacritic scores led us to believe that Hitman had potential to sell 4.5-5 million units, and 5-6 million units for Tomb Raider in EUR, NA and Japan markets combined."

“
FY2013 was our first attempt to release hallmark Western titles like Hitman and Tomb Raider without releasing a blockbuster game in Japan.

The briefing outlines how much Square-Enix had riding on its Western-developed games in the last financial year. "FY2013 was our first attempt to release hallmark Western titles like Hitman and Tomb Raider without releasing a blockbuster game in Japan," it reads. "We put [a] considerable amount of effort in[to] polishing and perfecting the game content for these titles, receiving extremely high Metacritic scores. [Tomb Raider currently sits on 86, Hitman on 79.] However, we are very disappointed to see that high scores did not translate to actual sales performance."

What's more, those internal sales estimates were conservative: 80-90% of what the company believed was their true sales potential. The report cites the "huge slump" in North American video game sales as the main factor in this shortfall, though the European market was also "soft".


Yosuke Matsuda is taking over the Square-Enix President position from Yoichi Wada later this year in the wake of an "extraordinary loss" for the company. With such exceptionally high internal expectations, though, it seems almost inevitable that these games' performance has fallen short. The entire company will be reviewed in due course.


Source: IGN

 

[Shaissa]

6 million for Tomb Raider? Sorry but seriously??? FFXIII has sold what was it.. 7 million? You are expecting a game that was hanging by a thread to sell that much in a month????

Square... let us talk about REALISTIC GOALS HERE!!!

As far is Hitman goes... again.. a game that was barely hanging by a thread... You expect to sell more than it's predecessors when the series was all but unheard of this generation till now?

And a whole new IP game you expect to sell 5 million?

Square Square Square....

"Next sale projections, we expect Final Fantasy XIV to sell 11 million in a day, after that we expect "next final fantasy" to sell 200 million in 2 seconds"

 

[Soulcorruptor]

Seems they think their name carries some weight of gold now. Find it funny 3.5 in the opening month and we are gonna consider this game an utter failure. Hmm maybe if they stopped wasting time with crap DLC and rushing out games left and right with said crap DLC, and instead focused on making an actual game worth time and investment and then showed it off. Then we might get our sales higher but it seems that's to much to ask for.

 

[Shaissa]

Seems they think their name carries some weight of gold now. Find it funny 3.5 in the opening month and we are gonna consider this game an utter failure. Hmm maybe if they stopped wasting time with crap DLC and rushing out games left and right with said crap DLC, and instead focused on making an actual game worth time and investment and then showed it off. Then we might get our sales higher but it seems that's to much to ask for.

True also I don't think they were going get those numbers unless they went back to when the games first came out....

On a side note sadly I think Square actually needed these numbers to hit to make up for the losses that they have had for the last few years... But seriously... have they looked at sales for games in the last few years?????

 

[Ohri-Jin]

SE is retarded man. Tomb Raider was one the best games of this year so far. I cant say the same about your FFXIII universe Square. Piss Off.

 

[DeepFriedSamurai]

Where the hell do Squenix pull these figures from? Seriously!?

 

[Linnaete]

Square buying Eidos could have been one of the few great (and best) things they've ever done. Having been left to die, Sleeping Dogs was brought back to life and finally completed, cementing itself as one of the decent open world games I've played and liked. The publishing muscle power of Square looked exactly what the ailing Eidos and its assets and properties needed, given that its franchises were pretty much left at the wayside of quiet mediocrity.

But instead of a yes, it's a yes and no.

They had to fuck it up with...I don't even know. Incompetent management? An express example of stupidity? Sheer misunderstanding of what franchises they acquired?

Hitman was NEVER an AAA-franchise like CoD and Ass Creed. The sales expectations for it are ludicrous.

Tomb Raider up to 6 million in the first month is so comically high that I'm shocked no one in management called out on it. This was also never an AAA-franchise. Its sales expectations for up to Underworld were always sensibly scaled down each time because Tomb Raider was always more of a sleeper hit. 5-6 million over the span of like, a year would be more reasonable. They failed to take account of that to scale down their bloated development budget for it, and whinge when 3.5 million sold in the first few weeks is considered a failure.

And it's a shame. Square-Enix's western branch could have shown itself to be the far more respectably able side of the company as a whole, as the Japanese side continues to seem all dazed and confused. I'd love to know what their expectations are for FFXIV and LR: FFXIII. I wonder if they remember the fact that FFXIII-2 overshipped considerably?

 

[Razberry Knight]

THN They believe that that western market is bigger than in Japan, so eidos games are expected to be higher. I dont get it. They shouldve seen previous sales from games of eidos before expecting something so high. They think quality = quantity. If its the greatest game ever, than we will expect an unrealistic number of sales right? WRONG. Half of my friends didnt even know tomb raider was out for thee first week..Honestly....the only one that met that quantity was XIII, and not because it was good. Cuz SE promised so much potential in the graphics we had no idea at what cost.

 

[Rydrum2112]

Can someone explain to me this "What's more, those internal sales estimates were conservative: 80-90% of what the company believed was their true sales potential."

Which means, 5-6million they really thought TR would sell 5.5-7.2million!! That would've been at worst the 6th best selling game for ALL of last year.

S-E needs less sycophants & morons advising people in the company.

 

[Linnaete]

"estimates were conservative"

Oh Christ. I totally missed that sentence. If that shit is what you call "conservative", then the video games AAA industry deserves to go off the deep end and have a crash sometime in the near future. I mean, besides the fact that not content with some DRM shit they pull, other publishers like EA and Blizzard have been banging around with games that require a perpetual online connection (as well as company servers that you know, actually have to fucking work as well!) that has so far failed, we have a large number of well-paid cretins at the levers of the industry. It's kind of sad. And yet, hilarious at the same time.

And welcome back, @Hatifnatten. I am delighted that despite your prolonged absence, you have decided not to shed some of that glorious wisdom and charm that we know you for. Have western games murdered your mother, or something? Dare I say, have you ever played one?