Signal Hill analyst Todd Greenwald says THQ "spent fairly heavily" on the marketing for its recently released multiplatform action title Darksiders, without much return.
"Darksiders didn't perform up to THQ's expectations, likely selling less than 1 million units despite heavy marketing dollars, 2-3 years of development costs, and was also subject to discounting just 2 weeks after its release," Greenwald said (via Gamasutra).
Greenwald expects THQ to report sales of $347 million overall for its March quarter, with year over year growth affected by comparisons to last year's release of Saints Row 2 and "weak sales and heavy discounting for WWE, MX vs. ATV Reflex, and numerous Wii titles".
"We'd also note that THQ will lack a Pixar title for the first time in seven years, as Pixar is developing Toy Story 3 internally," Greenwald said, adding that THQ relies on the Wii and DS market for 35-40 per cent of its sales and that market will be "much weaker" in 2010.