I mean I can only imagine this is the case. "We sold 7 million but we expected 10" Kind of thing. Because every single report is "below expectations" for every game, however they never seem to change their development practices or game releases or anything. So either they are really fucking stupid, which I doubt, or there is something off about the reporting.As I've said on the general gaming news thread, I think SE says this on purpose, when in reality they are bragging. I'm willing to bet the sales goals that they didn't meet aren't even the actual ones they planned internally. It's like that one asshole kid in class who says "Aww man, I studied so hard to get an A+, but I only got A- !!!!"
SE is doing a lot better than the Western publishers (save for few), and they probably know that