THQ Drops Outlook After Weak uDraw Debuts

Despite its surprise success last year on Nintendo's Wii, THQ's uDraw line of video game tablet controllers failed to make a splash on the Xbox 360 and PS3, causing the company to deflate its guidance.

In all the company said it will drop its previous third quarter (October through December) guidance approximately 25 percent below the $510 to $550 million it reported last month, placing it somewhere in the $383 to $413 million range.

"Despite uDraw's strong success on the Wii in fiscal 2011 and market research indicating strong demand for uDraw on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, initial sales of our uDraw tablet and software on these high-definition platforms have been weaker than expected," said THQ president and CEO Brian Farrell in a statement.

According to Farrell, both WWE 12 and Saints Row: The Third are still expected to perform either at or better than the company's internal estimates.

The initial projection, which it attributed to the combined success of sandbox adventure Sants Row: The Third and the uDraw series, would have been the company's highest-grossing Q3 in history. If this revised guidance pans out, that will no longer be true: the company's third fiscal quarter for 2008 saw revenues of $509.6 million driven by the success of WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008 and the Cars franchise.

The Wii version of uDraw was something of a surprise hit for the company. Between its November 14, 2010 release and May of this year it had shipped 1.7 million units worldwide, well ahead of the company's initial expectations of 1 million during the period.

THQ will announce its third quarter 2012 fiscal results in February of 2012, and will update its fourth quarter and full year guidance at that time.