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Square Enix's insane sales targets for Tomb Raider, Hitman, & Sleeping Dogs revealed

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Split bump.

I'll say there's zero possibility these were profitability lines unless Square Enix is by far the worst run gaming company ever.

I wonder what their subscriber expectations are for Final Fantasy XIV 2.0? 3 million? 5 million?
 
sleeping dogs least bomba.

Should drop everything else and Ubisoft it with a 1000 man team and annualize open world beat em up games.

Wei Shen tressfx.

I kid.... a little.
 

Takao

Banned
If Tomb Raider did 3.6 million, and the majority of that isn't still on store shelves it'll hit the lower end of their target eventually. Probably the same for Sleeping Dogs. Dunno about Hitman.
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
I didn't even know that Hitman was that popular.
 

Espada

Member
This is just absurd. Square-Enix needs to get shareholder expectations under control, because WOW.

This reminds me a lot of Capcom's absurd sales targets.
 

Grief.exe

Member
I have a feeling a lot of their losses are tied up in the Final Fantasy titles.

The CG and huge teams for those titles must cost significant amounts of money, and it doesn't help that they haven't even released the product.

They have to make up for those losses with ridiculous sales numbers from these three games. Its the only thing that could explain this.
 

sleepykyo

Member
http://www.hd.square-enix.com/jpn/news/pdf/explanatory_20130326.pdf

Square Enix's wished they had shipped:

Tomb Raider: 5 to 6 million

Hitman: Absolution: 4.5 to 5 million

Note: This means Tomb Raider's 3.4M, Hitman's 3.6M, and Sleeping Dogs' 1.75M are all real shipment numbers.

From ~2M (Underworld) to 5~6? Not an unreasonable jump at all.

Was Blood Money that big? Yeah Hitman got a movie, but so did Silent Hill and King of Fighters.

edit:
Historically the most it ever sold was like 2.4 million IIRC.

Ah, so Square paid twice the stock for Eidos and figured they'd be able to double the sales of all of Eidos' franchises?
 

antitrop

Member
Hollywood did take the IP and made a movie out of it. A terrible, terrible, terrible movie.
100% worth it for Olga Kurylenko.

2UdUY7Wl.jpg
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
I wonder if they regret getting Eidos now.

Not that they're bad, but their games don't sell as much as FF, DQ, and KH.
 
Haven't read through the entire document, but was there a timeframe for each game to sell their expected figures?

Like, for Hitman, is 4.5 million expected to be reached by, say, 6 months after release?
 

wildfire

Banned
Note: This means Tomb Raider's 3.4M, Hitman's 3.6M, and Sleeping Dogs' 1.75M are all real shipment numbers.

tumblr_lic6r3nqF41qd99mho1_250.gif


They seriously think 3.4M in half a month is poor sales? Tomb Raider may have been expensive but the month isn't even over yet. They potentially could reach that 5 million in the time period most AAA games sell. What a bunch of pessimists.
 

Tomat

Wanna hear a good joke? Waste your time helping me! LOL!
Did they set these numbers because they really thought they were going to sell that much, or did they set these numbers because they were hoping they would sell that much so they could get their money back?

I don't think any series listed there was incredibly popular to begin with (save for Sleeping Dogs, which is fair because it's a new IP).

tumblr_lic6r3nqF41qd99mho1_250.gif


They seriously think 3.4M in half a month is poor sales? Tomb Raider may have been expensive but the month isn't even over yet. They potentially could reach that 5 million in the time period most AAA games sell. What a bunch of pessimists.

Considering the Square Enix CEO has already stepped down and that there are going to be "management changes" or whatever, it probably doesn't matter if they do hit those numbers at this point. Change is already taking place based on their current results.
 
Hitman: Blood Money, the consensus best game in the series, and available on the most platforms, didn't sell HALF that target

what the hell were they thinking
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
How could they possibly expect Hitman to move that much?

The had/have plans to annualise the franchise, development alternating between Square-Enix Montreal (not to be confused with Eidos Montreal) and IO Interactive. It would appear Square-Enix simply had totally ridiculous, lofty expectations for the franchise. As in, it would explode out of the gate and become an Assassin's Creed-esque must have series for the general gaming populous.

It's not even a matter of quality. Expecting Hitman to go from what it was to that is just madness.
 
Haven't read through the entire document, but was there a timeframe for each game to sell their expected figures?

Like, for Hitman, is 4.5 million expected to be reached by, say, 6 months after release?

I would assume it's for the end of march reporting period, end of fiscal year.
 

Mesoian

Member
I mean hell, in two months Tomb Raider may actually hit those numbers.

But man, those hitman numbers. There was no way. There was NEVER any way.

Who's gonna pick up Eidos and their IP's when Square falls?
 

jWILL253

Banned
The OP might be indicative of the industry at large. The worst part? All of this is gonna come down hard on the heads of Eidos...
 
Like, no matter how good or bad Hitman Absolution is, it could've been the second coming of Blood MoneyxThief2xChaos Theory, and it wouldn't have come close to that sales target. Not in a million damn years.
 

CorrisD

badchoiceboobies
I'm really not sure why they expected to hit those numbers, they can't even hit what would be considered to be good numbers for Final Fantasy with their last console title, FF which is no doubt one of their biggest and most well known franchises world wide.

They seem to really be into blaming their western side at the moment while their Japanese studios continue to not do a lot or put out titles no one asked for.
 

kadotsu

Banned
Those were probably all "corrected" upwards a few quarters ago to keep projections nice after some other in house titles failed to perform.
 

wildfire

Banned
The OP might be indicative of the industry at large. The worst part? All of this is gonna come down hard on the heads of Eidos...

Who should be holding more sway over the management of SE instead of the other way around they things are currently going over there.
 

DJIzana

Member
The only reason Square Enix is so well known is because of their Japanese titles. Obviously the way things are going though... it's changing.
 

Tomat

Wanna hear a good joke? Waste your time helping me! LOL!
The OP might be indicative of the industry at large. The worst part? All of this is gonna come down hard on the heads of Eidos...

Not so sure about that. Only Eidos Montreal worked on any of those, and it was only Tomb Raider's multiplayer.

Crystal Dynamics developed Tomb Raider.
IO Interactive developed Hitman: Absolution.
United Front Games + SE London developed Sleeping Dogs.

Doesn't seem like Eidos has much to do with it at all.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Okay here are the previous sales for the franchises. Were I to make expectations for my financial projections, I would probably - at most optimistic - add one million to the previous entry.

sef1wnjl8.jpg


sef20tjzo.jpg
 

MechaX

Member
I wonder if they regret getting Eidos now.

Not that they're bad, but their games don't sell as much as FF, DQ, and KH.

FFXIII shipped probably 6+ million copies at this point, DQ only really sells well in Japan, and no KH game has been selling all that hot for the past half-decade.

In comparison, they thought that Hitman Absolution would suddenly jump up two million units from its highest sold incarnation. If they had actually given targets somewhat grounded in reality, Eidos's position would look better than it looks now.
 

kayos90

Tragic victim of fan death
The OP might be indicative of the industry at large. The worst part? All of this is gonna come down hard on the heads of Eidos...

So... it's Eidos' fault for those expectations? Just trying to read between the lines.
 

Tomat

Wanna hear a good joke? Waste your time helping me! LOL!
Not so sure about that. Only Eidos Montreal worked on any of those, and it was only Tomb Raider's multiplayer.

Crystal Dynamics developed Tomb Raider.
IO Interactive developed Hitman: Absolution.
United Front Games + SE London developed Sleeping Dogs.

Doesn't seem like Eidos has much to do with it at all.

Scratch that, they're all owned by Eidos, which is owned by SE. My mistake.

Dunno what to say about it then.
 
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