THQ’s restructuring amid a fairly depressing financial situation is no secret. They took a bath on the uDraw tablet and still have over a million of them sitting in a warehouse that they hope to sell this year, despite no longer supporting it or developing any further software for it. The uDraw fiasco isn’t the sole reason for their downturn but it serves as a good indicator of how the company has felt the pinch of a few bad decisions in a harsh economic climate.
They have responded by stating a desire to build on their core games and move away from the casual markets. That’s something that we, as dedicated gamers, would probably wholly endorse but I can’t help thinking that it’s swimming against the tide a little. When every other publisher is doubling down on casual markets, THQ is turning its back on them to put more effort into the area of the market that’s really not doing very well financially. Brave or foolish? We’ll see.
Well, it looks like the bad luck at THQ has been ceaseless recently as they are now talking to other companies about finding a new home for Tomonobu Itagaki’s latest project, Devil’s Third. The former head of Team Ninja saw his project in serious danger when the company making their game engine, Valhalla, went bust. THQ stepped in to rescue the project but at some expense. Here’s the quote, as transcribed by Joystiq
There were a couple of unforeseen events that happened during the development of Devil’s Third. One was the company that Valhalla was using for the engine went out of business, so we had to assist Itagaki and the team with a new engine – it took a fair amount of time and cost a fair amount of money
So it seems that THQ are now looking for a buyer for the unfinished project because it no longer meets their “profitability threshold”. Just how easy it will be for the publisher to sell a project when it has already admitted that it’s going to struggle to make money, remains to be seen.
Source: Joystiq