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NWR Interactive => TalkBack => Topic started by: Webmalfunction on February 03, 2012, 06:20:55 PM

Title: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: Webmalfunction on February 03, 2012, 06:20:55 PM

1.4 million unsold units and $80 million in potential sales are collecting dust in THQ's inventory.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/29179

THQ CFO Paul Pucino revealed that the uDraw performed $100 million below expectations in sales during a February 2 investor's Q & A.

According to the corporate officer, $80 million was lost from the 1.4 million units unsold in THQ's inventory, and the remaining 20 can be blamed on major discounting placed on many of the units that did sell.

At the investors meeting, the publisher has announced a $55.9 million dollar loss for the quarter. According to Pucino, $30 million of that can be directly attributed to the uDraw.

"From a contribution margin perspective, we would have doubled the profitability in the quarter were it not for uDraw. So it was something in excess of $30 million in operating loss in the quarter as a result of uDraw," Pucino said.

The uDraw saw success on the Wii, which led to its introduction on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. However, as a result of poor sales of uDraw's Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 releases, THQ has no plans to carry on with the brand in the future.

Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: ControlerFleX on February 03, 2012, 06:31:25 PM
Bargin bin here I come!

....what? Too soon?
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: fordrob on February 03, 2012, 07:14:31 PM
I suppose I contributed to this - as one of the few customers of these tablets to begin with (got one for my five-year-old daughter for Christmas), I opted for Ubisoft's Drawsome instead of THQ's uDraw....oh well...
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: KITT 10K on February 03, 2012, 07:21:45 PM
$80 million lost?! Ouch! (I think... YEP!!! My wallet just dropped dead of a heart attack.)
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: famicomplicated on February 03, 2012, 08:06:10 PM
Congratulations to the genius who thought that strong sales of a casual/kids accessory on the Wii, would translate to big sales on the 360/PS3...


What next, Babysitting Mama for the Kinect? :Q
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: MegaByte on February 03, 2012, 08:18:36 PM
Supply your own baby.
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: AV on February 03, 2012, 09:28:31 PM
is this a bad omen for Wii U ??
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: Stogi on February 03, 2012, 09:39:41 PM
Yes.

And by yes, I mean no.

Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: famicomplicated on February 04, 2012, 04:04:19 AM
Quote from: MegaByte on February 03, 2012, 08:18:36 PM
Supply your own baby.
That could work. (for me)

You earned the "rocking the cradle" achievement +10
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: Chozo Ghost on February 04, 2012, 04:22:17 AM
Quote
The uDraw saw success on the Wii, which led to its introduction on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. However, as a result of poor sales of uDraw's Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 releases,

There's your problem right there. Had THQ kept it exclusive to the Wii everything would have been just fine, but they had to go and try bringing it to other platforms where no one gave a crap.

Instead of manufacturing 1.5 million PS360 Udraws, they should have done more research to determine what sort of demand (if any) there was on those platforms, and then only manufacture (or not) according to that demand (or lack thereof).
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: UncleBob on February 04, 2012, 11:06:46 AM
Quote from: fordrob on February 03, 2012, 07:14:31 PM
I suppose I contributed to this - as one of the few customers of these tablets to begin with (got one for my five-year-old daughter for Christmas), I opted for Ubisoft's Drawsome instead of THQ's uDraw....oh well...

You know, I've kinda wondered with all this uDraw doom-and-gloom... what is UBISoft thinking?
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: ThePerm on February 04, 2012, 12:25:59 PM
not a good idea to release any accessory later on in a products lifestyle, the difference between this and wii u is wii u's tablet will be default. Its kinda dumb to release the tablet considering it will be obselete and uneeded when wii u comes out. Though can you copy the drawings to usb? If so this could be my ghetto centiq
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: Chozo Ghost on February 04, 2012, 01:03:25 PM
THQ should have made all their games compatible with the uDraw tablet. For example, what about Saint's Row Third? Was that game compatible with the uDraw? No? well, then why the hell not? And what about WWE '12? That's another game THQ makes which doesn't support it. Both of those games would have benefited greatly from the ability to use the uDraw to help with character customization. You can't expect a peripheral to succeed when even the makers of it refuse to support it 100%.
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: ThePerm on February 04, 2012, 02:02:10 PM
that would be pretty neat actually. Idea stamped with the approval stamp!
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: rlse9 on February 04, 2012, 07:17:25 PM
Quote from: Chozo Ghost on February 04, 2012, 01:03:25 PM
You can't expect a peripheral to succeed when even the makers of it refuse to support it 100%.
Nintendo disagrees, see the balance board and wii motion plus as exhibits A and B.

It's amazing to me that a company that big can completely miscalculate the demand for a product like this.  It seems kinda obvious that it would not necessarily be as successful on the other systems as on the Wii...
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: NWR_insanolord on February 04, 2012, 11:03:43 PM
Quote from: rlse9 on February 04, 2012, 07:17:25 PM
Quote from: Chozo Ghost on February 04, 2012, 01:03:25 PM
You can't expect a peripheral to succeed when even the makers of it refuse to support it 100%.
Nintendo disagrees, see the balance board and wii motion plus as exhibits A and B.

Comparing third-party and first-party accessories is apples and oranges. The console maker has a major advantage when it comes to releasing peripherals, in terms of perceived legitimacy and getting support from other developers. Also, I'm not sure I'd argue Motion+ succeeded as a peripheral and I certainly wouldn't argue the Balance Board did (yes, it sold a lot, but entirely because of Wii Fit; it got barely any support outside of that, and wasn't even available separately).
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: Chozo Ghost on February 04, 2012, 11:42:59 PM
The Balance Board sold well because a lot of people just bought it for the Wii Fit software and were perfectly satisfied with that. So yes it is a success in terms of sales, but there is very little software support for it aside from Wii Fit, so in that sense it was a failure. It all depends on how you look at it. It could have done a lot more and been used in a lot more games, but that didn't happen.
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: rlse9 on February 05, 2012, 12:15:43 AM
That's true that it's not really fair to compare first party to third party peripherals.  But they were both a huge success without Nintendo bothering to support them, and yes, I'm measuring success entirely by sales because that's the measure Nintendo and every other for profit company uses.
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: NWR_insanolord on February 05, 2012, 12:39:22 AM
Sales numbers get a bit murky in the M+ and Balance Board situations, though. In the same way that even though technically far more copies of Super Mario Bros. and Wii Sports were sold than pretty much anything else ever made, we traditionally exempt them from discussions of the best selling games of all time because they were predominantly sold through bundles. I'd be very interested to see how many standalone Motion+ units Nintendo sold, apart from game bundles and Wii Remote+ sales. It's even tougher to measure with the Balance Board, which is only available in a bundle with Wii Fit or Wii Fit Plus, making it nearly impossible to gauge the importance of the peripheral.
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: marty on February 05, 2012, 12:06:03 PM
Quote from: NWR_insanolord on February 05, 2012, 12:39:22 AM
Sales numbers get a bit murky in the M+ and Balance Board situations, though. In the same way that even though technically far more copies of Super Mario Bros. and Wii Sports were sold than pretty much anything else ever made, we traditionally exempt them from discussions of the best selling games of all time because they were predominantly sold through bundles. I'd be very interested to see how many standalone Motion+ units Nintendo sold, apart from game bundles and Wii Remote+ sales. It's even tougher to measure with the Balance Board, which is only available in a bundle with Wii Fit or Wii Fit Plus, making it nearly impossible to gauge the importance of the peripheral.
I wasn't even aware that the balance board was sold apart from the Wii Fit games.
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: KDR_11k on February 05, 2012, 01:38:40 PM
Quote from: famicomplicated on February 04, 2012, 04:04:19 AM
Quote from: MegaByte on February 03, 2012, 08:18:36 PM
Supply your own baby.
That could work. (for me)

You earned the "rocking the cradle" achievement +10

Achievement unlocked: "Cheaper than a pacifier!: Shook baby until quiet" 50G, police alerted.
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: LittleIrves on February 06, 2012, 03:43:59 PM
"I'm not sure I'd argue Motion+ succeeded as a peripheral and I certainly wouldn't argue the Balance Board did (yes, it sold a lot, but entirely because of Wii Fit; it got barely any support outside of that, and wasn't even available separately)."
[/size]--
[/size]Motion + succeeded because Wii Sports Resort sold gangbusters. It's still in Top 20 in Japan. The Balance Board was even more of a success -- how is this even a question? Since it wasn't available separately from Wii Fit, there's no point in even discussing them separately. From Nintendo's perspective, Balance Board = Wii Fit. One was made to make the other possible. They don't care if Rock 'n Roll Climber uses it or not. They made a product and they sold millions. Same thing with Motion +. It gave them the ability to do Resort. Did it bring with it a wave of awesome new M+ games? No. But Resort sold millions. Bam, success. Not to mention their premier franchise depends of M+, and will, it seems, moving on in the future. I predict once Motion + is standard remote from the beginning of a generation with Wii U, you'll see some amazing uses of it that wouldn't materialize with the split user base of the Wii.

[/size]Anyway. My nephew has a uDraw tablet. Then again, my nephew's parents bought a Tatsunoko vs. Capcom joystick to play Pac-Man on VC. So.....
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: NWR_insanolord on February 06, 2012, 04:37:13 PM
It's all about how you define success. If you look at it from a purely sales perspective, then yes, the Balance Board and Motion+ are successes. But I don't care that much about sales, and unless you own stock in Nintendo neither should you; what makes a peripheral a success for the end user is how well it's used by games, and both those peripherals leave something to be desired in that regard.
Title: Re: THQ Explains the Proportions of uDraw's Collapse
Post by: Chozo Ghost on February 07, 2012, 01:58:04 AM
Quote from: NWR_insanolord on February 06, 2012, 04:37:13 PM
and unless you own stock in Nintendo neither should you;

I don't own stock in Nintendo, but I am a fan and I don't want to see them go the way of Sega and Atari. So therefore their sales figures do matter to me.