THQ and Microsoft's new publishing deal brings Xbox titles to Nintendo's portable gaming system

CNN reports that Microsoft and THQ have announced a publishing deal yesterday that will port Xbox and PC game titles like Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee and Monster Truck Madness 2.0 onto Nintendo's portable gaming system, the GameBoy Advance. Here's a blurb from Chris Morris' CNN article:

"From a gamer perspective, this is great news. "Oddworld" is one of the Xbox's most under-appreciated titles and never quite got its due at retail. And Microsoft has some promising games in the pipeline for this fall for both the PC and Xbox (the THQ agreement covers both platforms). It's easy to imagine titles such as "NFL Fever," "MechWarrior" or even the upcoming "Blinx" fitting onto the GBA's screen. One game that won't be going portable, though, is "Halo." It might be the mack daddy of Xbox games, but Jeff Lapin, THQ's vice chairman and chief operating officer, tells me he doesn't think it has the range necessary to succeed on the GameBoy.

"Every game Microsoft has under development is under consideration," Lapin said. "'Halo' is a great game that works very well on the Xbox, but it's niche-y... We're looking for titles that appeal to a broad range of gamers."

For each game that THQ ports, Microsoft (MSFT: down $1.21 to $52.95, Research, Estimates) will receive an advance and a royalty based on sales. That should come in handy, considering how much money Microsoft is losing on the Xbox. A Red Herring report says the company will lose $750 million on the console this fiscal year and another $1.1 billion by June 2003. (Compare that to a 1999 estimate by Bill Gates that the company would lose $900 million over eight years on the Xbox.)

The agreement offers THQ the opportunity to cement its growing reputation as the de facto publisher for the GBA's AAA titles. Earlier this year, THQ struck a similar deal with Sega to make GBA games based on its existing properties. That should result in 10 Sega/THQ titles each year. (The Microsoft agreement will result in a smaller number of titles each year.)"

Read up on the rest of the article right here.