THQ down but not out
Profits slide, but optimistic for future
Publisher THQ last night announced their latest set of financial results, for the first three months of 2001. Profits added up to a not-so-grand total of $860,000 on revenue of about $59.3m, compared to $3.9m profit from $70.3m earnings for the same period last year. This was well within their predictions though, and the company remains upbeat about the rest of the year.
"Our first quarter results show that we are effectively executing our strategy to maintain our strong position on existing platforms while we establish THQ's leadership on the new generation of game platforms", according to CEO Brian Farrell. "With accelerating shipments of PlayStation2, and the anticipated launches of Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameBoy Advance and GameCube, the market outlook for the second half is encouraging."
THQ "are planning an aggressive launch schedule for each of these new platforms", and along with recent releases such as Summoner on the PlayStation 2 (currently riding high in the UK top ten), they have an impressive line-up for the next six months including the first person shooter Red Faction and a pair of Xbox launch titles - New Legends and WWF : Raw is War. They are also going all out to support the GameBoy Advance, with forthcoming releases including everything from Tetris World to GT Advance, not to mention a range of kids games featuring the likes of Scooby Doo and the Rugrats for older systems such as the GameBoy Color and PlayStation.