THQ Closes Australia Office

THQ has closed its Melbourne, Australia publishing office. The news comes as THQ looks to shift its international strategy to include third-party distributors rather than selling products directly, leading to the closure.

A THQ spokesperson provided IGN with the following statement:

“THQ confirms it has made changes to its publishing organization in Australia. In line with THQ’s corporate strategy to focus on wholly-owned IP and move away from affiliate label programs, we have evaluated how best to take our more-focused product lineup to market in the territory. After a thorough analysis, a decision has been made to move from a direct sales model to a distributor model, which means that our Melbourne publishing office will be closing. Approximately 18 employees were impacted by this action.”

The news follows other rounds of layoffs at THQ earlier this year, as well as the closure of its Arizona facility in August.

THQ will next release WWE 13 on October 30th, followed by South Park: The Stick of Truth and Metro: Last Light next year. The publisher recently dropped Guillermo del Toro’s InSane as well as announcing that it will not publish Devil’s Third.

IGN wishes the best of luck to anyone affected by today’s news.

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following @garfep on Twitter or garfep on IGN.

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AU: Win a James Bond 50th Anniversary Prize-Pack

To celebrate the release of  Bond 50: The Complete Blu-ray Collection (out now), IGN Australia are giving ten IGN readers the chance to win Bond 50: The Complete Blu-ray Collection, Bond 007 Legends on Xbox or PlayStation 3, a Bond 50th Anniversary limited edition t-shirt, a Bond 50th Anniversary key-ring, a Bond 50th mini poster book and a Bond 50th Anniversary postcard book.

For your chance to win, simply like us on our Facebook page, find the Bond 50: The Complete Blu-ray Collection Prizes picture on our wall (or click here), and post a hilarious caption in the comments section in 50 words or less.

The wittiest entries – judged, as always, by IGN AU's editorial staff - will win a prize-pack, with ten in total up for grabs.

The prize-pack consists of:

• BOND 50 BLU-RAY COLLECTION ($199.95)
• BOND 007 LEGENDS ON XBOX OR PS3 ($69.95)
• BOND 50TH ANNIVERSARY LIMITED EDITION T-SHIRT ($44.95)
• BOND 50TH ANNIVERSARY KEYRING ($19.95)
• BOND 50TH ANNIVERSARY MINI-POSTER BOOK ($24.95)
• BOND 50TH ANNIVERSARY POSTCARD BOOK ($14.95)

TOTAL PRIZE PACK VALUE $374.70

Entrants must be over 15 and residents of Australia.

Bond 50: The Complete Blu-ray Collection – all 22 Bond films available together for the first time on high-definition Blu-ray. Includes all-new bonus disc and over 120 hours of extras. Out now.

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TGS: PlayStation Mobile Launches in October, SDK in November

Sony has announced that PlayStation Mobile games will begin to arrive on October 3rd.

PlayStation Mobile will launch in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Italy, Spain, Germany and France to start, with more to follow. 30 games will be available at launch, ranging from 50 yen (approximately $0.63) to 850 yen (approximately $10.77) including tax. Titles will be developed by third party developers in addition to Sony's worldwide studios, with additional releases coming out often.

On top of that, The PlayStation Mobile Developer Program will also launch in November, allowing developers to access the PlayStation Mobile SDK (software development kit) to create their own games to distribute on the PlayStation Store for PlayStation Certified devices as well as Vita. The Developer Program will roll out in 11 countries and will be available for $99 per year.

Sony also announced that Fujitsu and Sharp will join PlayStation Certified, bringing titles to a massive amount of mobile devices worldwide, particularly in Japan. Sony will expand to additional devices in the future. During E3, it announced a partnership with HTC.

For more on PlayStation Mobile and the PlayStation Certified program, read the details Sony revealed last month.

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following him on Twitter or IGN.

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com