digg

Facebook Connect Join Digg About

THQ turns its back on ports, embraces console-specific development

arstechnica.com — THQ bucks the industry trend and will begin developing games that will appear on only one console.

Who dugg this? Made popular Apr 17, 2007

Digg DudeWhat is Digg?

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg surfaces the best stuff as submitted and voted on by the community. Take the Tour to learn more.

21 Comments

show profanity settings
expand all
  • 0x0000ff, on 10/12/2007, -1/+29You know THQ doesn't _make_ games, it publishs them?

    And i'd have to disagree if you were to say the games they publish suck.

    Dawn of War
    Company of Heroes
    Supreme Commander
    Stalker

    Along with one of the largest collections of childrens games in the market... Just because it doesn't cater specifically for you doesn't make them suck
  • CanadianGeese, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18""I don't mean to oversimplify this, but in the past a lot of publishers—including us—would say, 'Okay, let's make a game and get it across every system.' That's not our strategy going forward; there are going to be different gamers for the different systems," THQ CEO Brian Ferrell told GamesIndustry.biz. "So our strategy is different types of content, segmented on who the users of the systems are.""

    So 360 owners can expect to see shooters, while PS3 owners can expect giant enemy crabs. But, they will be some of the best damn crabs you've ever seen!!!
  • Eilarais, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15Seriously, about damn time. Multi-platform games always come with all the limits of every platform.

    Even if other companies don't do this, they should at least make seperate passes at the interface for each platform. PC games in particular really started to suck after the MS started advertising how easy is was to multi-platform with the XBOX.
  • MrFatalistic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8you're nuts, I'd agree with you 3 years ago, but nowadays THQ publishes some very fine games, my personal list:

    Dawn of War and it's expansions (kick ass)
    Company of Heroes (bad-ass)
    Supreme Commander (kick your retarded ass)
    STALKER (stfu and gyao)

    and Titan Quest IIRC?

    oh man you're lost
  • tabledesk, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Nice grammar. So *their* games are clearly marketed towards you. Unless you're an adult with horrible grammar. That would suck.
  • threepio, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7A big step towards "games that don't suck?" - optimizing your code for the console in question. We've seen that you can maximize revenue by porting - however, should you choose to, you can maximize gameplay experience by remaining console specific. This is a *great* move for gamers, no matter what console they choose.
  • ICSU, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@0x0000ff

    Actually, they also make a lot of games since some developers (e.g. Relic) are owned by THQ.
  • LMN8R, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7stalker, Company of Heroes, supreme commander, titan quest, dawn of war, and more. Damn I love THQ.
  • TrainwreckX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2THQ rocks the ***** house man. You really overlook how THQ has completely changed their image in the last few years. In addition to the great PC titles above, don't forget Saint's Row, Destroy All Humans! 2, and Smackdown vs. Raw 2007 on the consoles.

    If you say THQ makes bad games just because they make a lot of kids games, then you are a complete abortion of human life and don't know anything about how the games industry works. Kids games are the number 1 selling titles quarter after quarter. THQ funds all of their good titles with Bratz and Cars profits. And hell, some of the kids games they make aren't bad games at all! Cars was awesome!
  • wheeliedude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2YOU'VE DISTURBED THE NATURAL ORDER!
  • bjkrautk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm not a fan of the genre, but I thought THQ was essentially doing the same thing with its WWE games last generation.


    As long as THQ uses intra-company competition (ie, borrowing elements that are successful in other platforms' versions of the game, while introducing new elements), this strategy could improve the quality of games offered. ...or they could just put out cheap, licensed games like they have in the past.
  • DelSolMan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I enjoyed the series of WCW and WWF games for the Nintendo 64. At that time the Raw series was on Xbox and Smackdown! on Playstation. Maybe being console specific made the 64 games so good.
  • radiofrequency, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I ***** HATE ars technica. Those people are so pro-Microsoft it's disgusting. Here's a quote from the article:

    "Here's an example of how the segmentation might play out. The PlayStation 3 is losing some of the market share the PlayStation 2 enjoyed, and with the 360 doing well in terms of sales and library, it's possible the two next-generation consoles will have nearly the same size customer base."

    Yah, and it's possible they won't because the dreamcast sold better at this stage in its lifecycle than the xbox 360 is. So for ars' statement to be a "possibility", the console gaming market will have to contract: there will be the xbox 360 with dreamcast-like sales, the PS3 will have dreamcast-like sales or lower, and Nintendo Wii will take over the rest - in which case it basically doesn't make any sense to build anything for xbox 360 or PS3 and just stick to writing software for the Wii.
  • gorilla, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1They are currently making Saints Row on the PS3 though!?
  • MrFatalistic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1most games start on the PC and make their way to the xbox, I can only think of a few that didn't (Battle Engine Aquila) and like that title, it's almost completely forgotten. The console usually gets a watered down version (Doom3, Half-Life2, FEAR) I think they understand that it's the PC gamers that largely keep them in business, for console only publishers, obviously they try to port as much as possible. It's awesome that THQ has gone this route, I think some really great games will come out of this, at the very worst we'll see some average games, but at least it won't be another Far Cry disaster on the Wii...
  • DiggFight, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1THQ makes hundreds of games. Some are good, most are bad, but the sheer number of titles is enough to make some waves. If they choose to drop a console, this is very bad news for that console.
  • ZeroMP, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3"So our strategy is different types of content, segmented on who the users of the systems are."

    I get it... shooters for Xbox 360, "party games" for the Wii, and movies for the PS3 - brilliant!
  • logicalnoise, on 10/12/2007, -11/+2"jack of all trades" to "jack who sucks eggs?"
  • Sabin, on 10/12/2007, -22/+12Maybe next they'll try making games that don't suck.
  • revenge7, on 10/12/2007, -14/+1And Wii owners can expect Wii Sports.
  • darkhero, on 10/12/2007, -22/+1Your right... They always seem to be years behind bungie and ubsoft. Plus there games are for young teenagers.

  • Add a Comment

    Login or register to comment!
    Or, sign-in super fast with your Facebook account ...


© Digg Inc. 2009 — Content created and posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain | Terms of Use Updated | Privacy Policy
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.