Breaking News: Yoichi Wada resigns as Square Enix CEO

http://www.siliconera.com/2013/03/26/square-enix-president-yoichi-wada-steps-down/

Numbers must be really bad.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...3-4-million-copies-failed-to-hit-expectations

Sounds like they had ultra-high sales expectations for Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs, and Hitman, that those games failed to hit despite being critical and commercial hits by most standards.

[quote name='Ryuukishi']http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...3-4-million-copies-failed-to-hit-expectations

Sounds like they had ultra-high sales expectations for Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs, and Hitman, that those games failed to hit despite being critical and commercial hits by most standards.[/QUOTE]

It's just amazing that these games are being cited as issues when the whole Square side of the company just makes 1 dumb decision after another. They really don't have a clue...but I guess people keep buying shitfest fantasy over and over again so this is what we get. If you sell 3.4 million of something and you're not successful doing it something is obviously wrong. I think it's got to be mismanagement at this point. Lame.

Maybe a change of guard will be a good thing for the company, like the way Kaz Hirai has worked to turn Sony around.

I know nothing about Square's internal workings or finances, but bombing an MMO is a pretty big deal.

[quote name='panzerfaust']I know nothing about Square's internal workings or finances, but bombing an MMO is a pretty big deal.[/QUOTE]

Just look at Rhode Island!

FINALLY!! I've been wanting him gone for a long time. I guess we shouldn't be too surprised, considering the sudden halt in their mobile and social games (thankfully). Hopefully his replacement gets their Japanese branch back focusing on making quality JRPGs. KH3 & FFvXIII, please!!!

Good riddance, maybe the company will actually get their collective heads out of their ass now.

Stole this top comment from the IGN article about this. IMHO it's perfect:

"They tease fans with a Final Fantasy 7 remake, then never start making it. They show off a cool looking game (Versus) then never release it. They get everyone's hopes up for Kingdom Hearts 3, then release a bunch of spin offs on different platforms, making everyone lose interest. Then they make the worst Final Fantasy game ever, and they give it 2 sequels. Yeah, I don't think this surprised anyone. IF ONLY THEY LISTENED TO THE FANS!!!"- captionlite

[quote name='Reira']KH3 & FFvXIII, please!!![/QUOTE]
That's part of the problem. They need to remember that they have other (Squaresoft) franchises besides Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy.

well, i guess there is no chance for a sequel for sleeping dogs, and tomb raider

hmm this is nice kindof

[quote name='blueshinra']That's part of the problem. They need to remember that they have other (Squaresoft) franchises besides Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy.[/QUOTE]

But if they make two of the most demanded games (three if you count the FFVII remake) then they'd have the money to try new RPGs or take a second chance on sequels to games like TWEWY, Dewprism/Threads of Fate, or Chrono Trigger/Cross. While charging $30-50 for a complete social or mobile game seems like easy money, it seems to tick more people off.

Also, SE can't complain about NA/Europe game sales when they don't release the games people want in other territories.

A VII remake would be a huge waste of resources at this point. Best not to bring nostalgia and personal wish lists into an argument about business practice. If vocal fans on message boards represented the actual market, Square Enix wouldn't be selling games at all.

[quote name='panzerfaust']A VII remake would be a huge waste of resources at this point. Best not to bring nostalgia and personal wish lists into an argument about business practice. If vocal fans on message boards represented the actual market, Square Enix wouldn't be selling games at all.[/QUOTE]

Yep... It's not so easy to just "listen to the fans" when fan demands are so ephemeral and contradictory. Even in this thread you have one person saying to stop milking the Final Fantasy series and one person asking for more FF remakes and sequels. :lol:

[quote name='Reira']But if they make two of the most demanded games (three if you count the FFVII remake) then they'd have the money to try new RPGs or take a second chance on sequels to games like TWEWY, Dewprism/Threads of Fate, or Chrono Trigger/Cross. While charging $30-50 for a complete social or mobile game seems like easy money, it seems to tick more people off.[/QUOTE]
It's not like they haven't had the money to make new "hardcore" games. In the past five years or so they've made, but haven't localized, Sigma Harmonics, Nanashi no Game and its sequel, Bravely Default: Flying Fairy (though there might still be a slim chance for this one... maybe), and others. Final Fantasy Type-0 as well, going back to that franchise, and Slime MoriMori Dragon Quest 3 (aka Rocket Slime 2) and Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland if we include Enix.

[quote name='Reira']Also, SE can't complain about NA/Europe game sales when they don't release the games people want in other territories.[/QUOTE]
Yup; see above ^

[quote name='panzerfaust']A VII remake would be a huge waste of resources at this point. Best not to bring nostalgia and personal wish lists into an argument about business practice. If vocal fans on message boards represented the actual market, Square Enix wouldn't be selling games at all.[/QUOTE]
Very true. Remakes always sell less than the originals; there might be some exceptions, but those would be anomalies. On top of that, a remake of this particular game, in the way many fans want it to be done, would be ungodly expensive. For better or worse, an FFVII remake is not the golden bullet that many fans think it is.

It’s a shame. As a publisher, I really like SE’s games, so it sucks that even though they are doing quite well, they are not quite meeting these rather lofty expectations. I’d hate to see the publishing side of SE stop releasing these really great games.

SE as a developer however, is a different story. I don’t know how much of an effect they are having on the company’s profit, but I’d imagine they hold a large part of the blame for the company being in the red. It seems like they are really having development problems this generation... A lot of time and effort has no doubt been spent on fixing/reworking the flawed FFXIV along with creating a PS3 version. Type-0 doesn’t seem destined to make it out of Japan, which I doubt will cover for all of the time and money spent devloping it. Versus is clearly in development hell (or was scrapped and reworked for the PS4 if rumors are true), and supposedly Kingdom Hearts 3 can’t get started until they finish Versus. Even FFX HD seemed to have been stuck in limbo for a while. Really, it feels like the only successful title coming out of SE in the past few years have been FFXIII’s sequels (not necessarily critically, but at least commercially since they already had FFXIII’s engine and assets to utilize).

I’m hoping we’ll see some improvements to SE from this shake-up. I think this is a good opportunity for them to try some bold new changes like, I dunno, not having the most expensive iOS games on the app store? It might be a good idea to consider outsourcing titles to third party developers.

[quote name='iamsmart']SE as a developer however, is a different story. I don’t know how much of an effect they are having on the company’s profit, but I’d imagine they hold a large part of the blame for the company being in the red. It seems like they are really having development problems this generation... A lot of time and effort has no doubt been spent on fixing/reworking the flawed FFXIV along with creating a PS3 version. Type-0 doesn’t seem destined to make it out of Japan, which I doubt will cover for all of the time and money spent devloping it. Versus is clearly in development hell (or was scrapped and reworked for the PS4 if rumors are true), and supposedly Kingdom Hearts 3 can’t get started until they finish Versus. Even FFX HD seemed to have been stuck in limbo for a while. Really, it feels like the only successful title coming out of SE in the past few years have been FFXIII’s sequels (not necessarily critically, but at least commercially since they already had FFXIII’s engine and assets to utilize).[/QUOTE]

Yeah their dev experience this gen has been rocky to say the very least. Final Fantasy XIV was an out-and-out failure, Versus remains in development hell, and even XIII had a long and disorganized development period and nearly didn't make it out of development hell itself. It's like they had no preparation or idea how to handle their flagship series making the transition to this generation.

[quote name='highoffcoffee496']Stole this top comment from the IGN article about this. IMHO it's perfect:

"They tease fans with a Final Fantasy 7 remake, then never start making it. They show off a cool looking game (Versus) then never release it. They get everyone's hopes up for Kingdom Hearts 3, then release a bunch of spin offs on different platforms, making everyone lose interest. Then they make the worst Final Fantasy game ever, and they give it 2 sequels. Yeah, I don't think this surprised anyone. IF ONLY THEY LISTENED TO THE FANS!!!"- captionlite[/QUOTE]

That's the perfect way to sum up this guy's tenure. They have released a handful of great games during his run but for the most part, it seemed like this guy was using Square and Enix's individual reputations to milk franchises to death and have tarnished their reputation.

I couldn't be happier to Wada go. I hope the next guy actually focuses on making great games that will sell rather than trying to make things sell by sticking "Final Fantasy" or "Kingdom Hearts" on them. I also hope the company goes back and remember that they have a huge library of classics and new IPs that they can learn from and build upon.

I am glad he is gone. Hopefully we can go back to quality RPG games. I mean everything else Square puts out on the Western end is usually top notch (Just Cause 2, Deus Ex HR, Sleeping Dogs, Tomb Raider, etc).

If they want to cite bad sales, I saw earlier on tv an ad for Tomb Raider about renting it from Redbox.