IndustryGamers recently sat down with THQ's SVP of Creative Development Danny Bilson who shared with us his vision for the "new THQ". We'll be bringing you the full interview in the near future, but we thought we'd share Bilson's interesting comments on Nintendo's Wii to start.
When we asked Bilson about how THQ is adapting to the overall console landscape, he responded: "Well the first thing you have to do is break out of the old model of, 'I'm going to port this game to seven SKUs.' The same game on PS3, Wii, PSP, DS, 360, PS2 and all that crap. That doesn't work anymore, and the reason is, in my opinion, that these platforms are now different cultures – they're almost different gamers. I'm almost starting to see a split in PS3 and 360, which you thought you could lump them together, but there's actually a slight cultural difference there in Europe and America, and a difference between who's got the Blu-ray and why they buy it, Xbox Live fans versus PSN users, etc. And then the nightmare of all for third parties, frankly, is the Wii. The Wii is a Monopoly box in a closet! I've got my Wii Sports and I'm good! I take it out, get the family around, we flail around for a couple hours, and we're happy until next month when we take it out, or maybe for junior's birthday, I'm going to buy him a Mario game."
We pointed out that Nintendo has been trying to counter that perception of late, but Bilson stuck to his guns. "Here's the deal: there is so much junk on the Wii that if you add up all the numbers of those hundreds of SKUs, I'm sure you can cough up some number that's impressive. If you go to GameStop, and you look at the Wii wall... I went in on Wednesday before Thanksgiving, when everything should be fully stocked, I wanted to see what retail looked like. I wasn't even in this state; I was in Florida... you look at the Wii wall and you can't find anything. It's a big conglomeration of junk and the Nintendo stuff pops, and a couple of other things pop, and that's it. On PS3 and 360, same day, there was a nice neat little 25 SKUs that they were showing for each one on the rack, and it was easy to see what's there and to see a general level of quality. The Wii is just flooded with junk and all kinds of stuff."
Bilson stressed that THQ is "supporting the Wii" and is planning to "greenlight more Wii games: family, casual, get everyone on the couch games. I'm a big believer in that." He continued, " Right now, we're not moving hardcore stuff to the Wii. We were; we stopped it, just because we're a little risk averse. I want to be with the culture of the Monopoly box in the closet – I've got to feed them. I've got to get them to want to buy another game, because they're not the gamers that are looking forward to the next thing next week in putting in the pre-orders and all that."
7 Comments
8 months ago
courtesy of gaf
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WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009
half the wall probably belonged to THQ
8 months ago
Well whatever. I bought Deadly Creatures and enjoyed it. So I can't be blamed for not doing my part in supporting quality third-party titles.
8 months ago
what a worthless prick danny bilson
he's sold over a million copies of shovlware party game bibg beach sports, almost a million copies of de blob and the wii is their most lucrative platform. yet the piece of sh!t still has the nerve to complain
hopefully nintendo will force thq to put him ot of his misery, the guy is a moron and a complete liability
8 months ago
"I've got my Wii Sports and I'm good!"
Gee, I wonder why you put it in this closet so much... Could it be because you HAVEN'T BOUGHT GAMES FOR IT?
People are absolute idiots these days. No wonder THQ has been swirling down the pooper in the industry.
8 months ago
Oh, and I wanted to note: "Deadly Creatures." Who in their right mind thought that this was a good idea? The very fact that you play as bugs with absolutely no distinguishing characteristics shows how niche this game was. How do you pitch it? "You play as a scorpion. Or a spider. You can kill with them." Whoopdy freakin do. This is about as niche of a title as you can get, and the sales reflect that, not that there are no core gamers on the Wii. Heck, the game probably would have done worse on the 360 and PS3. You just can't convince people that playing as bugs is better than playing as full fledged heroes.
8 months ago
Calling Danny Bilson anything related to the word "creative" would be a crime. Danny, maybe you should wear your 50 inch thick glasses next time you go shopping for games. Here in Denmark we have a lot of cool titles for the Wii (EA, UBI SOFT, CAPCOM etc.) and YES, we play other games than Wii Sports. But if he thinks everything in the games industry sucks, then why continue working in it. Danny, you would be much better off working at the local 7 Eleven.
8 months ago
Wii is absolutely NOT our most lucrative platform. Look at the titles that have been our most successful ones... Saint's Row 1 & 2, WWE, now UFC and hopefully Red Faction will establish itself. Yes, WWE came out on all titles, but it's definitely not the Wii who rakes in the sales numbers. We've had a couple of decent titles on the Wii, like DeBlob and Big Beach Sports, all others are just... meh.
I don't really understand why you guys react so harshly to Danny's comments. It seems silly to me. Danny is right. The hardcore gamers are on PS3 and X360, not on the Wii. Anyone trying to deny that most likely doesn't have too much industry insight in what sells and what doesn't. The Wii may have the largest install base by now, but that doesn't mean that it also sells the most number of units.
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