[26/03] Yoichi Wada resigns as Square-Enix CEO

[Linnaete]

Hold the press! News just in:

1 | 2

NOTICE OF CHANGE IN REPRESENTATIVE DIRECTORS

SQUARE ENIX HOLDINGS CO.,LTD. (the “Company”) expects that the Company’s representative directors will change. Such change is subject to a resolution by its 33rd annual general meeting of shareholders to be held in late June, 2013, and a resolution by its board of directors meeting to be held after the said meeting of shareholders.

1. Reason for the election
Renewal of the Company’s management team

2. Change in the representative directors
Yosuke Matsuda
Representative Director President and Representative Director

Translation:

"Yoichi Wada, Square Enix has resigned as President and CEO

Toshiaki Konishi: Editorial

March 26, 2013, Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd., announced that he will step down as President and CEO Yoichi Wada, newly, Mr. Yosuke Matsuda of the current appointed representative director. The Reason for change is a "management system for reform." 　The future of Mr. Wada has not been announced at this time."

I guess Square's done a bit of shabby work and their investors aren't too pleased with them at the moment. Wada has gone overboard to "make way for management reform", while Yosuke Matsuda takes up the post of CEO. Well, good luck to him then.

Another CEO bites the dust. First John Riccitiello, now you.

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Stolen from duckroll

 

[Steve-O]

and now, over to final fantasy forums for more reaction to this story

poor wada, but I heard he resigned, sounds like he got sacked xDD, anyway good luck to the new random guy

 

[Shaissa]

...hold on... *rereads*
...*rereads again*
...is this an early april fools joke???

and I agree with Steve-OOOO

He probably "resigned" before he got sacked...

 

[L]

well at least he can't make terrible jokes about why they won't remake FF7 anymore

 

[Starships]

Not sure how to feel about this. Things for now on could go alot better and we could see a improvement with things, or things could go alot worse and even murder the series. Well ... of course.

 

[Tyler Breeze]

Meh. This is only one thing for sure, and that's a change. This is a change that may or may not tamper with current and future products. Hopefully it's a change for the better.

Good luck to the new guy. I hope he does good with this spot he has.

 

[Ohri-Jin]

http://www.vg247.com/2013/03/26/squ...ry-loss-in-next-financial-report/#more-352847

SE is not doing well. Well I hope for some changes. Some positive changes.



Tue, Mar 26, 2013 | 14:24 GMT
[h=1]Square financials: Tomb Raider, Hitman & Sleeping Dogs fail to hit sales targets[/h] Tomb Raider has sold 3.4 million units in the last four weeks, which is still a failure in the eyes of Square-Enix’s financial report. The company published a grim revision of its expected financials this morning, citing the poor performance of several titles as a key contributor.

I recommend that you check out our first report on Square’s financial revision here, and our report on Square president Yoichi Wada’s resignation as a result. It’ll put the below into context.
Another part of the Square financial report has now surfaced, breaking down sales figures for each of its key releases for across the current financial year. Here’s an excerpt of one presentation slide:

All three games have failed to hit their sales targets so far.
The report continued, “Despite the high critical acclaim, [the games] failed to meet each target. In particular North America sales force as 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.”
Some would say 3.4 million units of Tomb Raider sold in four weeks is good considering the decline in some areas of the triple-a market.
What do you think? Should Square be concerned? Let us know below.

Source - http://www.vg247.com/2013/03/26/squ...g-dogs-fail-to-hit-sales-targets/#more-352939

 

[Shaissa]

Sorry but What kind of sales were they hoping for?

Sleeping Dog was a brand new IP and in this day of video games, those usually don't sell very well (and hell did Square even really try to commercialize this game?)

As far as Hitman and Tomb Raider goes, These games haven't been around for how long? With a reboot you want what? 10 million copies? I mean mean if you beat if some of the previous games games sold then how can you say that it is a "failure" when they also were the top selling games when they came out almost everywhere in the world?

Also on a side note, if they are losing so much money and having sales like these... Maybe they should stop doing so much crap at once and release what they have promised for so long!

"wait for e3"... hahaha new games and haven't released what you talked about! yeah I can hardly wait... *sarcasm*

 

[AuronX]

I'm with Shace on this one. The Tomb Raider reboot has already sold better than every game in the series since Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation in 1999. That's somehow a failure?

Can't really comment on the others since I don't know anybody that plays Hitman anymore and Sleeping Dogs was a brand new IP. Those may truly not be selling well. However, they further prove the point that Square Enix needs to start getting: they're releasing too many games that nobody wants.

I like the FFXIII series, but I can understand that what the majority of people asked for was Versus XIII and a localization of Type-0. How did SE respond? Never localizing Type-0 and indefinitely postponing Versus XIII so they can work on sequels to the FF game that long-time fans generally disliked. Oh, and then in their spare time they made Final Fantasy: All the Bravest (like that was going to help).

Square Enix is being spread too thin working on too many titles that too many people don't care about. It's not that they can't make some great games, it's that they need to seriously refocus where they're applying that creative energy.

 

[Linnaete]

It's...strange. The one thing that seems plausible to me that explains why the Eidos HD titles are considered "failures" so far is simply because someone's screwed up royally in the sales targets. To have incredibly lofty sales target ambitions without properly considering the potential popularity of the games, while scaling a game's development budget (as well as marketing budget, shipment costs, etc.) to these lofty sales expectations is pretty much asking for relative failure.

I also wonder what the state of MMO revenues is. Sure, they wanted to repeat the success of FFXI, but things have changed since then, and given how financially damaging the initial launch of FFXIV had been, as well as its nuking in favour of an intensive redoing, I'd like to see if they are losing much from the MMO front.

Additionally, they recently announced that they were shifting away from social games (presumably the iOS game market would be left intact, or expanded upon), so I'm also wondering whether the F2P bubble is collapsing, DESPITE what the following say:

EDIT: I just realised they started selling the F2P front too.

...I'm just as confused now. I'm clearly not due for a job as a business analyst anytime soon.

 

[Climhazzard]

Brilliant news in my opinion! I never liked his vision for the FINAL FANTASY series since 2009!

I wish Matsuda all the best in his new tenure and to bring us an Final Fantasy with lot's and lot's of hours of turn-based gameplay, enigmatic stories with diverse and interesting characters. And NO NOT ON HANDHELDS. I want a console FF that returns the series to it's household roots. I also wish they wouldn't alienate their core principles that's been ever present in the series since the late 80's.

I blame this gust of 'change'. How much do we bloody need? Till we can't even recognize it's FF anymore? I already experienced this with XIII, no more I tell you! _

 

[Razberry Knight]

Brilliant news in my opinion! I never liked his vision for

the FINAL FANTASY series since 2009!

I wish Matsuda all the best in his new tenure and to bring us an Final Fantasy with lot's and lot's of hours of turn-based gameplay, enigmatic stories with diverse and interesting characters. And NO NOT ON HANDHELDS. I want a console FF that returns the series to it's household roots. I also wish they wouldn't alienate their core principles that's been ever present in the series since the late 80's.

I blame this gust of 'change'. How much do we bloody need? Till we can't even recognize it's FF anymore? I already experienced this with XIII, no more I tell you! _

I agree this is good news aswell, however i dont think it wont be innovating to stick to turn base or even ATB. Thats not really Yoichi Wada's fault IMO. The gust of chage happened because kitase wanted to change FF to a deeper level and although it worked to a degree on XII, motomu toriyama came along and stroked his ego and made such a high graphic game but llacked everything a final fantasy game should have.

What i do blame yoichi wada is green lighting final fantasy XIII, and Final fantasy XIV, plus allowing Type-0 and Versus XIII to get so underdeveloped we wont be seeing them in western shores for a long time or not at all.