When Square Enix posted losses this year, and revealed that several key titles like Hitman Absolution, Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs had failed to meet sales expectations, Yoichi Wada resigned as president and the publisher ultimately invested a huge amount for making changes across the board.

Of course, there was the issue of what would happen to Wada. Turns out he didn’t leave the company at all – he’s actually succeeding in becoming Chairman of the Board for the company.

According to a listing on Square Enix’s site, Wada is now the incumbent Chairman of the Board as of June 2013.

While we haven’t seen an official announcement from Square Enix concerning the same – though honestly, the above is enough confirmation – it will be interesting to see how his appointment affects future policies. Wada wasn’t necessarily seen in the most positive light following delays on titles such as Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remaster and Final Fantasy Versus XIII (now Final Fantasy XV). However, as of E3 2013, the company appear to be back on track for the time being.

Much of this is due to titles like Hitman: Absolution, Tomb Raider and Sleeping Dogs seemingly under-performing (which subsequently lead to Yoichi Wada stepping down as CEO), with the Digital Entertainment portion of the company posting an operating income of ¥44 million. This is down by 99.7 per cent from the fiscal year before.

A recent financial report stated that, “The business environment surrounding the Group is in the midst of major changes, where devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs are spreading rapidly, while the console game markets in North America and Europe are increasingly competitive and oligopolistic.

“In light of such environmental changes, the Group is focusing all efforts on a substantial earnings improvement through driving reforms of business structure in order to establish new revenue base.”

In the fiscal year prior, Square Enix posted a profit of ¥6 billion. It is currently projecting a net profit from ¥3.5 to ¥6 billion in the fiscal year ending March 31st 2013.

This follows the recent news of Square Enix incurring heavy losses following the fiscal year ending March 31st 2013. The company will be restructuring itself majorly and is expected to incur losses of about 10 billion yen (around $105 million) by the end of the fiscal year.

Given how Square Enix has been postponing expected releases like Final Fantasy Versus XIII and pouring immense resources into failures like Final Fantasy XIV – not to mention the continuation of the Final Fantasy XIII saga, which is proving to be more trouble than it’s worth.

We’ll get to see if this actually helps benefit Square Enix in the long-run, given how they want to focus on big budget titles now.

When Wada spoke to the Famitsu magazine he said: “It would be good if they made more games like Heavy Rain”.

Seeing more games like Heavy Rain, is a statement a lot of people who played the game had said, but coming from a boss of a video game company could indicate about the games we will see in the future.

Since it’s release in February, the title has been appreciated by game developers ,saying it is a  ’welcome change’ to the industry.

Source