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The Future Of Devil's Third Is Uncertain
THQ said it's having discussions with other companies regarding Devil's Third, the first post-Tecmo game from Valhalla Game Studios head Tomonobu Itagaki.
The publisher did not go into exact detail during its earnings call this afternoon. "The profitability profile for Devil's Third no longer met our internal threshold and we are currently in discussions with third parties regarding the future of this title," CEO Brian Farrell said.
THQ provided addition information on the call. “There were a couple of unforeseen events that happened in the development of Devil’s Third," Farrell explained. "One was the company that Valhalla was using for the engine went out of business so we had to assist Itagaki-san and the team with a new engine and it took a fair amount of time and cost a fair amount of money.
"There’s also been a substantial appreciation of the yen against the dollar. Those increases in development costs just reduce the profitability when we ranked all of our product releases when we underwent our restructuring; the profitability of Devil’s Third was not competitive with our other releases."
Farrell added: "We think it’s an excellent franchise. We’ve really enjoyed working with Itagaki-san. We’re going to explore other alternatives with both him and others to make sure this product comes to market."
Correction: The title of this article previously read that THQ was looking to drop the title.
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