Ever-increasing development budgets rear ugly head in latest Square Enix financials
Sales of 3.4 million for Square Enix’s Tomb Raider reboot in the space of a month were not enough to meet targets, according to the publisher’s latest financial report.
The Japanese game giant, which is expecting to report "extraordinary losses", said that despite performing well critically, titles such as Tomb Raider, Hitman: Absolution and Sleeping Dogs all failed to hit their sales goals.
Hitman: Absolution reported 3.6 million sales, while Sleeping Dogs hit 1.75 million.
Square Enix said that its North America sales force in particular was “ineffective”, making up just two thirds of the number of units sold in Europe.
Labelling the sales of 3.4 million for Tomb Raider as “weak” shows the challenges developers are increasingly facing to produce triple-A titles with ever-escalating development costs.