*do not approve yet*THQ’s EVP talks about the Wii

Kelly Flock, THQ‘s EVP for worldwide publishing, was recently interviewed and he answered some questions regarding the Wii,  including what games to expect from his company, on how he sees the console wars will turn out in the next two years and how Nintendo‘s tradition of strong first-party games affects the strategy.

Flock is a 20-year veteran of the game business and has been a major force behind the industry’s elite names. He was the CEO of Sony Online Entertainment, Sony Interactive Studios America president and President of 989 Studios.

Flock recognizes the success of the Wii and says “The one thing it’s changed is that I think we’ve ramped up a lot more Wii stuff. We got on the Wii early, largely out of our Australian studios – we had four titles at launch.” and adds “We’ve always been a great partner with Nintendo so we would have been there anyway, but we just love the machine and we started putting things on it right away just to learn the architecture so that we could then gravitate and start doing more original stuff. This year, we’re planning to bring 11 titles out for Wii. We’re bringing WWE, which I played a very early version of and I thought was fantastic. Ratatouille, the Pixar movie, is also coming to it. And we’re starting to develop some Wii-specific original titles. We really like it, we’re enthusiastic about it and the numbers that we’re seeing out there seem to bear that out. You know, you still can’t find out at retail and everybody who has one loves one.”

When asked how the Nintendo and THQ’s tradition of youth-oriented games fits in the equation, Flock says, (what we eusually do with interviews having long quotes)

We’ve been moving more and more into the mature gamer category on the PC and the other consoles and WWE has always been a T-rated game, and that’s coming over. We think the Wii will have much broader appeal than the last few Nintendo consoles and that there’s going to be a huge market for the T and M-rated games. We haven’t announced any M-rated software on it now, but we wouldn’t preclude ourselves from developing something in that area. I think the key thing with the Wii is that you really have to do titles specific for that platform because it is so different than the PS3 and 360, but I think it’s going to support the whole range.

Flock was a little more cautious in making extrapolations regarding the console battle and how things will play out in the next couple of years, saying “we sort of see them getting into different niches altogether. The 360 is looking an awful lot like it did on Xbox, with the hardcore gamer and the shooter category. The Wii is the one that seems to be getting adopted by everybody – it’s an aggressive price point. I don’t think it will just be a second console, but I think you will see that the people who do buy a high-end consoles will also get a Wii, and not necessarily the reverse. Right now, we’re taking the position that all three of them are going to hit their numbers over the next few years and create viable markets for us.”

When confronted with the query on how  third party developers will fare this time on Nintendo’s new machine, Flock candidly replies “we know the drill with Nintendo. They, out of all the hardware companies, tend to have an incredible lineup of first party software and they tend to have the highest market-share of any first party on their own platforms largely because they execute so well. They don’t make a lot of titles, but they make every title a big event. But this is going to be a bigger market than it has been on their previous consoles so it’s going to be a larger market for us to compete in volume wise, but it will be more crowded. I’d be surprised if Nintendo falls much below 40 percent market-share after the next couple of years, but there is going to be a lot of opportunity.”

Via ign

Kelly Flock, THQ‘s EVP for worldwide publishing, was recently interviewed and he answered some questions regarding the Wii,  including what games to expect from his company, on how he sees the console wars will turn out in the next two years and how Nintendo‘s tradition of strong first-party games affects the strategy.

Flock is a 20-year veteran of the game business and has been a major force behind the industry’s elite names. He was the CEO of Sony Online Entertainment, Sony Interactive Studios America president and President of 989 Studios.

Flock recognizes the success of the Wii and says “The one thing it’s changed is that I think we’ve ramped up a lot more Wii stuff. We got on the Wii early, largely out of our Australian studios – we had four titles at launch.” and adds “We’ve always been a great partner with Nintendo so we would have been there anyway, but we just love the machine and we started putting things on it right away just to learn the architecture so that we could then gravitate and start doing more original stuff. This year, we’re planning to bring 11 titles out for Wii. We’re bringing WWE, which I played a very early version of and I thought was fantastic. Ratatouille, the Pixar movie, is also coming to it. And we’re starting to develop some Wii-specific original titles. We really like it, we’re enthusiastic about it and the numbers that we’re seeing out there seem to bear that out. You know, you still can’t find out at retail and everybody who has one loves one.”

When asked how the Nintendo and THQ’s tradition of youth-oriented games fits in the equation, Flock says, (what we eusually do with interviews having long quotes)

We’ve been moving more and more into the mature gamer category on the PC and the other consoles and WWE has always been a T-rated game, and that’s coming over. We think the Wii will have much broader appeal than the last few Nintendo consoles and that there’s going to be a huge market for the T and M-rated games. We haven’t announced any M-rated software on it now, but we wouldn’t preclude ourselves from developing something in that area. I think the key thing with the Wii is that you really have to do titles specific for that platform because it is so different than the PS3 and 360, but I think it’s going to support the whole range.

Flock was a little more cautious in making extrapolations regarding the console battle and how things will play out in the next couple of years, saying “we sort of see them getting into different niches altogether. The 360 is looking an awful lot like it did on Xbox, with the hardcore gamer and the shooter category. The Wii is the one that seems to be getting adopted by everybody – it’s an aggressive price point. I don’t think it will just be a second console, but I think you will see that the people who do buy a high-end consoles will also get a Wii, and not necessarily the reverse. Right now, we’re taking the position that all three of them are going to hit their numbers over the next few years and create viable markets for us.”

When confronted with the query on how  third party developers will fare this time on Nintendo’s new machine, Flock candidly replies “we know the drill with Nintendo. They, out of all the hardware companies, tend to have an incredible lineup of first party software and they tend to have the highest market-share of any first party on their own platforms largely because they execute so well. They don’t make a lot of titles, but they make every title a big event. But this is going to be a bigger market than it has been on their previous consoles so it’s going to be a larger market for us to compete in volume wise, but it will be more crowded. I’d be surprised if Nintendo falls much below 40 percent market-share after the next couple of years, but there is going to be a lot of opportunity.”

Via ign