Yoichi Wada To Leave Square Enix as President

The president of Square Enix Co., Yoichi Wada, will be leaving his post as announced by the company today.

The news follows the release of the company's financial report, in which they state that they expect "extraordinary losses" as a result of slow sales in both their digital and arcade machine market. They've laid the blame primarily on what they believe to be sluggish sales from North America and Europe.

In the report, the company also states that they are reversing from expected earnings of 3.5 billion yen to projected losses of 13 billion. Their current losses are said to already be within the 10 billion yen range, due to a restructuring within the company that includes development policy, organisational structure, and business models.

Three big games were listed in the report; here's the diagram below:

Note the sales for Hitman: Absolution and Tomb Raider. In the report, Square Enix considered those failures as the projections for the titles were higher.

Representative director Yosuke Matsuda is expected to be elected into the president's chair in June. No word on whether Wada will stick around after his removal from the position.

Fun (or Sad) Fact: Both Wada and Matsuda are taking 60 and 40 percent pay cuts, respectively.

Sources: [GameSpot, Destructoid, VG247, Kotaku]

Image from VG247