THQ May Migrate uDraw To Other Platforms, CEO Says

Bringing THQ’s uDraw GameTablet “to other platforms” is something that “we don’t want to rule out,” CEO Brian Farrell told the Goldman Sachs conference in San Francisco Wednesday. The console accessory is available only for the Wii.

"It’s something we're in the very early stages on,” Farrell said. But we think there’s opportunities to migrate those consumers to other platforms potentially in the future,” he said. Farrell didn’t say which systems he would be open to migrating the art accessory to, but the PS3 and Xbox 360 would seem logical choices, especially as those consoles start reaching a more mass market audience via the new PlayStation Move for PS3 and Kinect for Xbox 360 motion control systems and as their pricing drops further.

THQ had to launch uDraw “in a tough window” this past holiday season because Kinect and Move were coming out, said Farrell. “So, from a marketing standpoint, we had to be a little circumspect. We did not launch it at E3 [in June] on purpose just because we thought we would get lost in the noise” generated by Kinect and Move, he said. THQ “waited until August” to announce uDraw, and “it just took a while to build that momentum,” he said. THQ was “pleased” with initial reaction to uDraw, he said. The company said early this month it shipped 1.2 million GameTablets in Q3 ended Dec. 31 (CED Feb 3 p9). “We were always confident in the project. But it was a tough competitive environment with those two other motion controllers with a lot of money behind them,” he said.

Like uDraw, Kinect and Move are all about “new play patterns,” said Farrell. Before the GameTablet’s release, “all of our consumer testing was very positive” about the art and drawing applications that uDraw offered, “so with the huge Wii installed base and the new play mechanic we thought this was a real opportunity,” he said.

The new SpongeBob SquigglePants game that THQ announced Wednesday (CED Feb 17 p12) has a drawing component, but also uses the device’s pad “as an interface device as well in a very unique way, so we think there’s even more new play patterns that can be explored with the uDraw,” said Farrell. SpongeBob SquigglePants will ship April 12 at $29.99, THQ said.

If there’s a significant price cut on the Kinect and Xbox 360 console bundle that would enable Microsoft to potentially attract more of the Wii audience, THQ could benefit, Farrell said. “Our Kids, Family and Casual unit has a very robust pipeline of titles coming out for Kinect. We had big success with The Biggest Loser title on Kinect” in the fall and “even continuing into the first part of this year,” he said. “We love installed base” growth, and “we think we're well positioned for that on the Kinect."

Farrell gave a bullish forecast for Kinect sales. “The great thing about Kinect -- and I think why it’s going to continue to be successful and I think where we can even get better -- is ease of user interface” and voice commands, he said. “I think there’s a lot of new play patterns that can be explored on the Kinect and that’s the exciting thing about it. I think we're just starting to figure out what we can do with it,” he said. For example, he said, “I think augmented reality is a real opportunity on the Kinect as a consumer experience. So between augmented reality, great interface and just new play patterns, we think the Kinect is going to have a very successful future.” THQ’s Fantastic Pets, shipping on 360 next month, will be the first game to feature augmented reality on the Kinect motion system, it said last year (CED Oct 22 p8).

THQ doesn’t “expect new hardware anytime soon from either Microsoft or Sony,” Farrell said, referring to home consoles. It’s “difficult” to predict when Nintendo will ship a new console, he said. “We'll let them announce their new hardware,” he said. It’s widely expected that Nintendo will be the first videogame hardware maker to ship a new home console because the Wii is the only current system that’s not HD and sales have been dropping for the past year or so after Nintendo’s system took an early installed base lead.

In the meantime, Farrell said he wanted the three console makers to open up their platforms to new business models, namely microtransactions. Some free-to-play games are able to make money by attracting a large installed base and then making money off additional content and other digital transactions. THQ will in May release the PS3 and Xbox 360 racing game MX vs. ATV Alive, its first title to be sold using a business model in which the game will be sold at a lower cost than most console games and the publisher will then look to make money via additional downloadable content.

"What we really need, and we've been talking to them about it, is for Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, if they really want to stay at the cutting edge of the games business … to adjust their business models to allow for … new consumer experiences,” said Farrell: “Consumers are going to demand it, in our view.” THQ is “platform agnostic,” and if “someone else comes with some kind of a cloud system or one of the other platforms takes off … that allows consumers to consume the way they want, that’s going to be the winner at the end of the day, and that’s where we'll migrate our content,” he said.