No where does Square say those games were "commercial failures". That is a total fabrication. They simply failed to meet targets. Failing to meet a high benchmark does not mean the games were commercial failures, it just means they didn't sell quite as much as they hoped. Two completely different things.

Poor title, designed to get clicks.

That reminded me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_wfwdrnewU

Skip to 2:48 

Do Square-Enix have a different definition of "HD" than me?  Weird comment.

But yes, as everyone else has said, this is beyond ridiculous.  Then again, I think these games had extremely bloated development times.  Should sequels come (and we know one is coming for Tomb Raider), hopefully building on the existing base will create a good game without such a drawn-out process; which may in turn make them more in line with what Square-Enix was expecting.

Well, that, and maybe this will be the realisation they need to lower their expectations.

Fact of the matter is that Capcom is in an even worse situation. Apperantly they have been losing money chasing that AAA blockbuster superhit for so long that they only have $152 million left in cash reserves. That is interesting, and just as SE needed Nintendo 3DS to stay afloat, so does Capcom (MH4). Yet, they too, refuse to give Nintendo their full support.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-09-10-capcom-looks-towards-big-changes-after-difficult-fy13

Weird indeed.  It seems to me that Square considers all consoles, portable or not HD.

if anything doing that will increase budget even more since they have to spend more money on a port for WIi U and lets be real, you think a Wii U version will make up for the million copies they didnt sell? Have you seen the sales for multiplat games, none of them are even close to a million. COD isnt even at half. The problem has nothing to do wiht not supporting Wii U and everything to do with having unrealistic expectations and budget. Its freaking Tomb Raider even the best games in the series never sold anywhere near what SE wanted, someone in their is very stupid, hell the series peaked at number 2

I was ofcourse refering to the upcoming generational shift. This could hit certain companies pretty damn hard next year, and by contributing for a slow uptake of WiiU consoles by limiting their support heavily, could hit them hard if PS4 or Xbone doesn't sell fast enough. I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear in my initial post.

AAA gaming bubble, anyone?

They all didn't lose money on those specific projects... atleast Sleeping Dogs and Tomb Raider, I've forgotten if they said anything about hitman absolution. In a sense, this goes in line with what they said. They didn't perform commercially to expectations, but were critical successes. That's what they've stated since the start. This is pretty much exactly what they've said all along, just a different article spinning it for whatever reason.

However, when you invest in a game you expect an Cost/Benefit of like 2. Meaning you make twice as much as you put in. This, lets you grow, and reinvest money in new/more projects. it's more complex than that as there's much more analysis that's actually used. But, when you're proposing a project in any industry you analyze what you think you're going to make through research. This lets you map your business plan for the future. These 3 games were projects that were in development a long time.

All of the games pretty much made what was put in. Which is bad, not as bad as  losing money. But, not what you want, particularly since SE has lacked any breakout hits to offset this. They've pretty much had games that performed at expectations or below. I believe Deus Ex is one of the ones that outperformed this gen, but even then it didn't even crack 4 million even with DD included. FFXIV however, has also performed above their projections. I'd wait and see if that trend still exists when subscriptions kick in before they start dancing.

You know their HD department is doing tremendously well when the only game highlighted is a 3DS game.