Devil’s Third, the action/third person shooter from former Team Ninja leader Tomonobu Itagaki, is in trouble. During an investor’s conference call THQ president Brian Farrell announced they are shopping around for a financial partner for the game. Devil’s Third was first announced with THQ as a publisher in 2010.
"The driving force behind [the decision] for us was profitability," Farrell explained further in a question and answer session. Two "unforeseen" events reduced Devil’s Third’s profitability. "The company Valhalla was using for the engine went out of business, so we had to assist Itagaki-san and the team with a new engine. It took a fair amount of time and cost a fair amount of money."
"There has also been a substantial appreciation of the yen against the dollar. Those increases in development cost reduced the profitability that when we ranked all of our product releases, when we went underwent our restructuring, the profitability of Devil’s Third was not competitive with our other releases," Farrell continued.
"We think it’s an excellent franchise. We’ve really enjoyed working with Itagaki-san. We’re going to explore other alternatives with him and others to make sure this product comes to market."
But, that won’t happen, at the earliest, until 2013 when Devil’s Third was slated for release.
In addition to Itagaki-san, Valhalla Game Studios employees a number of former Tecmo and Team Ninja staff such as Satoshi Kanematsu (Valhalla’s CEO), Hiroaki Matsui, Yoshifuru Okamoto, and Katsunori Ehara.
