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 THQ announced recently that they would be making a few changes to their list of upcoming titles. With the publisher expecting to take a $27 million dollar hit to its bottom line, they plan to clean house. Juiced and Stuntman, are just two of the franchise titles that are heading to the chopping block. THQ came to the decision to drop these titles due to their lack of retail performance, and has decided not to pursue any new installments in the future. It has also been announced that THQ will be closing the doors of Concrete Games, a studio that was working on one of their unannounced games that was scheduled for release in 2010. If this wasn’t enough the slashing doesn’t stop here. The PS3 version of Frontlines: Fuel of War appears to have been ambushed on it’s way to publication and is laying in a ditch somewhere. It also seems that Destroy All Humans and Big Willy Unleashed for the PS2 have also fallen in the crossfire.

 "In October, we announced certain product-quality initiatives, including personnel and structural changes in product development and a more rigorous internal and external product evaluation and feedback process," THQ CEO and president Brian Farrell said in a statement. "Consistent with these initiatives, we have taken actions to strengthen our pipeline and position ourselves to compete aggressively with compelling, high-quality games."

THQ also downgraded its revenue expectations for the current quarter, which ends March 31. Whereas the publisher had previously expected net sales of about $240 million, it now expects to ring up roughly $200 million. Part of that is a result of the cancellation of Big Willy Unleashed for the PS2, which had been set to ship in March, as well as lowered sales expectations for previously released titles. THQ also plans to defer $10 million in revenues "due to the significant online-play component" of the PC edition of Frontlines: Fuel of War. To top it off, THQ will also report an extra $20 million in expenses due to underperforming sales from Stuntman: Ignition, Ratatouille, and Conan.

 The only good news to come from THQ’s financial update was that WWE Smackdown vs. Raw and the MX vs. ATV Untamed titles did better than expected. This unexpected bump will set the companies revenue at about $509 million at the end of December of this past year. With all the restructuring going inside within THQ’s walls, I’ll be surprised if we get one good title out of them this year; but we can keep on dreaming.

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