Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs, Hitman sell below expectations

Three big releases from Square Enix's Western studios fell short of sales targets, according to financial documents released today by the publisher.

Sleeping Dogs, Hitman: Absolution, and Tomb Raider were each singled out, with sales of approximately 1.75 million, 3.6 million, and 3.4 million respectively expected for fiscal year 2013. Those figures do not include download sales for the games, all of which were released on PC as well as consoles.

Square Enix said the three did not measure up at retail despite critical acclaim; we gave each high praise in our reviews, for our part. The publisher said its North American sales force was particularly "ineffective, ending up with two-third of number of units sold in Europe."

Major restructuring is planned throughout the publisher the company anticipates a net loss of 13 billion yen (£91m / $138m), including the resignation of longtime CEO Yoichi Wada.