In its 2013 annual report  Square Enix has reiterated its previous stance that Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs and Hitman: Absolution have been “commercial failures.”

The company has said on numerous occasions before that these games failed to meet their sales target. This came as a bit of a surprise to people, especially in case of Tomb Raider because the game sold more than 4 million units within six months of its release. Square Enix has actually blamed its financial woes on the home console market.

The report states:

In the HD games category, we delivered three major titles in the fiscal year under review, primarily in Europe and North America. These titles—Sleeping Dogs, Hitman: Absolution, and Tomb Raider—failed to reach their respective targets, and resulted in financially unsatisfactory consequences, whereas the HD business in Japan remained strong through sales of the Nintendo 3DS version of Dragon Quest VII: Eden no Senshitachi (Warriors of Eden) and others.

On a more positive note, Square Enix does recognize that these games were a success in terms of game development.

Source: Pixelenemy

Very sad to read this.  TR is a Goty contender imo.

That sucks so much.

I still hope we see a Tomb Raider sequel in the future.

LOL everytime i read this i go like WTF?! TLoU exceeds expectations with 3.4 Million sold, key word, exceeds. and that game is behind a very popular developer. these guys sell 4 million and its a "commercial failure" wow! way to go and show faith in your developers square

They did the impossible and made TR relevant in a generation with vastly different tastes from prior generations and yet it was a commercial failure. How not to run a gaming company 101 by Square Enix.

U cant really blame anyone but Square Enix themselves. Either these games had over inflated budgets or they simply had unrealistic expectations. All 3 of these games sold well and should have posted profits.

Square Enix needs to start managing the budgets for their games. While all of these games are great, their budgets were probably too high in comparison to how well they sold. Square Enix's sales expectations are incredibly unrealistic, so they over budget their games. Game development is going to get more expensive in the next generation, and if they don't do something to fix this problem soon, they will go bankrupt.

You have to wonder how much they spending on these... Like bananaking21 said, If Naughty Dog can pull something like TLOU off and consider 3.4 million "exceeding expectations", you would think SE could pull off these games for a lot less.

shifting the blame on losses of the Japanese division.

They even try to say that Japan did well thanks to dQ on 3ds

Tomb Raider, at least. Sales that most games would kill for.