Square Enix CEO Youichi Wada has announced he is finally taking responsibility for the company’s disastrous financial performance by resigning, after the firm posted a 13 billion yen loss in its most recent fiscal quarter.
He will be succeeded by 49-year-old Yousuke Matsuda, Square Enix’s chief accountant, who is unsurprisingly promising to turn around the company with a program of drastic reform.
Whether Matsuda – who was presumably not without influence over the company’s direction during his 10 year tenure on its board – is any improvement of course remains to be seen.
His public disclosure of owning a mere 200 shares (presently trading at 1,100 yen each) does not seem a huge vote of confidence in the company’s future.
Wada for his part has not commented on his future employment plans, although a face-saving sinecure seems likely to be all he will manage.
Although no discussion of Square Enix’s failings is complete without mentioning Final Fantasy, continued weak performance from just about all of their latest releases – most recently Tomb Raider and Dragon Quest X – seems finally to have made Wada’s position untenable.
As with the recent “resignation” of EA’s CEO, there is also a strong suspicion that whatever the public facade of voluntary resignation, he has been ignominiously sacked.
Also echoing EA, the CEO in question leaves behind a devastated company in his wake, widely reviled by gamers and having a rock bottom stock price – although given the notorious difficulty of extricating a Japanese CEO from their position, the scale of his incompetence likely dwarfs even that of the great helmsman of “America’s worst company.”
For Tomb Raider I don#t know the reason since it’s pretty good actually..but Dragon Quest X shows why not every fawking RPG series should be made into an MMO. Srsly I hate this Online s♥♥t more and more. Yeah go ahead call me grandaddy, at least I#m a game who’s still willing to pay more than $20 for a game.
I really hope Capcom does the same
Haha, drastic reform. Is Square a political platform or something now? I guess that would make sense of their downfall…
I like to print westernized junk of what was once a great title. My storylines now suck. I use the same proto-atongnist type characters over and over again. I’m no longer shocking but predictable.
All I can do is throw pretty-boy type girls and guys out. I drain dumb gamers of their money and ruin a title in the process.
I am Final Fantasy. The Last title of the 90’s. Behold my stinky lame storyline, battle-lines and over-rendered CGI graphics instead of real-time rendered graphics.
How far have I fallen.
I feel like if they would have at least announced KH3 and released Versus13 already he would still have a job….