Read this article and I couldn't believe it.

Here's the link:

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/index.html?t=690645

According to Wired's Game|Life, THQ is rumored to be shutting down five of its internal development studios. Wired claims:

"The official developer list has been removed without warning, replaced with a list that includes 5 fewer studios than the previous version. Presumably we'll hear some official confirmation on THQ's plans when the publisher reveals its quarterly financial reports this Wednesday."

 

 

THQ's critics point out that the company's recent offerings have been weak outside of its successful WWE and Nickelodeon games. An uneven portfolio combined with current economic conditions make this a tough time to be releasing risky titles, especially original franchises. It'll be interesting to see what announcements are included in THQ's financial report on Wednesday.

 

Not one bit surprised. This kind of thing is going to continue to happen as companies like EA, Activision, THQ, Take 2 and more continue to loose hundreds of millions of dollars every quarter. That is the reason the multiple differant hardware configerations is going to have to end. All three console makers are going to have to come together on a standard for harware next gen. Games have got to be comapatable with every system on the market. All of these software companies can not contiune to make up to seven differant versions of the same game every year.

I have been trying to explain a format standarded for like the last 8 years, but the gaming community is so set on their dam fanboyism that they refuse to even use logic on the subject. The current way of buisness in the video game industry is in a very bad situation. Developers creating the same game across up to seven differant platforms every year has no good results. In the end it leaves them with a lower profit magin, or worse no profit at all. It also results in very slow progression in yearly titles. We have to realise that makeing games is not a charity act, people do it for a living, and if they can not make money we will not have games even if they are in extream demand.

A move to a single format future would also help gaming reach a new audiance like never before. If you think the numbers the Wii/360/PS3 are pulling in is impressive, you would not even be able to breath because of how quick a single format would sell. Just think of it as the movie industry. If Paramount, Sony Pictures, and Warner Brothers all made their own movie players with their movies exclusive to their system, while the rest played on all, were do you think the movie industry would be today? Just as very few buy every game console, the same would hold true in this situation. Even more people would not be interested in getting a player at all. At the end of the day it would cause movies to be somewhat of a niche market, and the three companies would have fanboys that claim all the other companies movies suck.

I wish I could explain this in a way everyone could understand, but it just does not seem to get though to the stubern people out there. I know Dennis Dyack, and David Jaffe have been pushing it somewhat in confrances and for that I appluad them. Over the last couple of years I have begun to write to Microsoft, Sony, Nintedno, and the four biggest game makers about this subject. From the publishers point of view this is something they would really like to try to work on, but the usual from the harware comapanies is "we do not have, nor have we ever had plans of colaberating on a sigle format for the gaming industry. Thank you for your concerns, and comments. Sincerly, MS/Sony/Nin". Just give it a thought, and if you can see the potential write to these companies. If thereis enough demand they may want to budge.

The only other way I can see gaming going forward is if 3rd parties just flat drop support for all but one console, and onehandheld. If they were willing to do that I would support them 100% no matter which console they chose. If the Wii was what they decided on this is about the only reason I would ever go for it, but the industry needs help.

There losses have next to nothing to do with different hardware configurations ... On most HD projects the cost associated with porting the engine from one peice of hardware to another would be less than 5% of the total budget.

Where these companies are struggling is ... For the longest time videogame publishers have focused on producing 3 or 4 unprofitable for every 1 profitable game under the assumption that the one games success would be large enough to make up for the losses their other games produced. The problem is that the costs associated with HD game development means that your successful game has to sell multiple millions of copies in order to recover the costs from your unsuccessful games, which is a barrier only a few games can really pass in a year.

Until companies like THQ start focusing on ensuring that most of their games break even or turn a profit (by only spending as much money as they can recover) they will be at high risk of going bankrupt.