THQ on the DS
Late Wednesday afternoon, in a conference call with analysts, THQ CEO and President Brian Farrell addressed many issues. What follows are a few of his thoughts:
'Launch is important, but we’d like to remind people that is the low point of installed base. We’ll be at the launch or very near launch for both of the systems [DS and PSP], but we’ll manage our brands consistently throughout the life cycle of both those platforms.'
'As we’ve said before, we look at DS and PSP as expanding the handheld market. GBA, while it does appeal to a wide demographic, we think its strength is in the kids – aged six to 12, or 13 – category. The DS seems to sort of bridge that, in the 10 to 18 category. Clearly, PSP, with its price point and multi-functionality, looks like it’s targeted at an older gamer or entertainment consumer. So, the fact that there’s two big entries with strong marketing programs going after an untapped segment of the market is overall positive and grows the market, rather than cannibalizes it. And, I think most of our competitors would share that view as well.
With respect to development expenses, what we’re experiencing on DS is that they’re certainly higher than on Game Boy Advance, and the way we’re looking at the DS business model is higher development costs, lower product costs … PSP, similar. Higher development costs. Lower product costs. On balance, the model looks like it works and is very similar with the other disc-based businesses that are out there.'
'We’re supporting both DS and PSP. We’ll support both of them aggressively. We’ll do what we always do at platform launches. We’ll continue to talk to the first parties. We’ll continue to talk to retail. We’ll continue to make our own estimates as to the current and future viability or momentum of both of those platforms and allocate our brands and our development dollars accordingly. Since they’re both relatively unknown now, we have relatively equal bets on the two platforms, and we’ll shift those as the markets change.'
'If you look back to the Nintendo GBA launch, we, along with some other publishers, commanded a premium price point of $39.99 for handheld. And, while not announcing anything now, we’re certainly looking at that to see if that’s a sustainable price point for both DS and PSP and, certainly within the initial launch timeframe, we wouldn’t want to rule out price points like that.'â€
Wow! It looks like THQ is pulling out everything on the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP, and I think there might be a typo in there, but I thought all games will be $29.99 not $39.99? Oh well, if they say their games will cost $39.99 good for them.
Article from: Nintendojo
-Falco8
'Launch is important, but we’d like to remind people that is the low point of installed base. We’ll be at the launch or very near launch for both of the systems [DS and PSP], but we’ll manage our brands consistently throughout the life cycle of both those platforms.'
'As we’ve said before, we look at DS and PSP as expanding the handheld market. GBA, while it does appeal to a wide demographic, we think its strength is in the kids – aged six to 12, or 13 – category. The DS seems to sort of bridge that, in the 10 to 18 category. Clearly, PSP, with its price point and multi-functionality, looks like it’s targeted at an older gamer or entertainment consumer. So, the fact that there’s two big entries with strong marketing programs going after an untapped segment of the market is overall positive and grows the market, rather than cannibalizes it. And, I think most of our competitors would share that view as well.
With respect to development expenses, what we’re experiencing on DS is that they’re certainly higher than on Game Boy Advance, and the way we’re looking at the DS business model is higher development costs, lower product costs … PSP, similar. Higher development costs. Lower product costs. On balance, the model looks like it works and is very similar with the other disc-based businesses that are out there.'
'We’re supporting both DS and PSP. We’ll support both of them aggressively. We’ll do what we always do at platform launches. We’ll continue to talk to the first parties. We’ll continue to talk to retail. We’ll continue to make our own estimates as to the current and future viability or momentum of both of those platforms and allocate our brands and our development dollars accordingly. Since they’re both relatively unknown now, we have relatively equal bets on the two platforms, and we’ll shift those as the markets change.'
'If you look back to the Nintendo GBA launch, we, along with some other publishers, commanded a premium price point of $39.99 for handheld. And, while not announcing anything now, we’re certainly looking at that to see if that’s a sustainable price point for both DS and PSP and, certainly within the initial launch timeframe, we wouldn’t want to rule out price points like that.'â€
Wow! It looks like THQ is pulling out everything on the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP, and I think there might be a typo in there, but I thought all games will be $29.99 not $39.99? Oh well, if they say their games will cost $39.99 good for them.
Article from: Nintendojo
-Falco8
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