THQ's Farrell: Drawsome 'Not An Issue' For uDraw Market

With Ubisoft recently announcing its own Drawsome tablet controller for the Wii, THQ president and CEO Brian Farrell said the new device is simply "not an issue" for the success of THQ's uDraw tablet. Speaking at BMO Capital Markets' Digital Entertainment Conference, which Gamasutra listened in on, Farrell said with regards to Drawsome that it's "odd to think that 100,000 units is going to change the market in any meaningful way at all." He went on to cite uDraw's six companion software titles, including "killer app" Pictionary, as well as HD offerings on the Xbox 360 and PS3 as important differentiators for uDraw. The fact that uDraw is available globally, while Drawsome is currently planned for a U.S.-only launch, also had Farrell saying he was less than worried. Regarding THQ's business as a whole, Farrell repeated often that he felt THQ was at an inflection point where strong upcoming titles would help turnaround recent performance that is "not where we need to be." "For the last several months, our titles have been good but not great, and that's not good enough," Farrell said. "And when they're good but not great, we can't afford to put the marketing muscle behind them that we need to." Early reviews for Saints Row: the Third had Farrell saying he was confident that title will be a well-received top-seller, and he expressed similar high hopes for upcoming WWE and UFC titles as well. While Farrell said the company was looking into both Facebook and mobile integration for its brands, he said that "frankly we're much more enthusiastic about the mobile market -- we think we have a lot of opportunity for that as consumers migrate to those devices." He also stressed that THQ was now approaching a 50/50 split between licensed and original IP, a "painful" transition that should nonetheless result in "significant value creation for shareholders."