The WildTangent Orb will feature the same full-screen user interface and game pad-enabled experience that other leading game consoles offer. Additionally, it will leverage the superior hardware performance and connectivity of the PC, the world's most popular and pervasive online gaming platform.
"The WildTangent Orb turns any modern PC into a full-featured game console more powerful than any next generation game console including the Microsoft XBOX 360, Sony PS3 or Nintendo Wii," said Alex St. John, CEO of WildTangent. "Now enthusiast gamers can download and play popular console games they love on the most ubiquitous gaming device available today: the PC."
St. John today encouraged the nearly 20,000 attendees at the annual Game Developer Conference in San Francisco to follow the lead of THQ and Sierra Online into online game distribution of their AAA console titles.
"Enthusiast gamers are spending a tremendous amount of time playing games on their PCs," said Michael Pachter, managing director of research at Wedbush Morgan Securities. "While traditional consoles will continue to have their place for the foreseeable future, the market has become highly fragmented and modern PCs have the media capabilities and market share to represent the largest contiguous enthusiast gaming audience console publishers can reach."
Starting in April, 12 million WildTangent gamers will be offered a free upgrade to the WildTangent Orb game console, when it will be released publicly for the first time on www.wildtangent.com. In the second half of 2008, WildTangent Orb will come pre-installed on every major-brand consumer PC in the U.S., including HP, Gateway and Toshiba.
"Sierra Online is continuously looking for opportunities to offer its popular and award-winning titles to game enthusiasts in the format they prefer to play them," said Ed Zobrist, president of Sierra Online. "Those who enjoyed playing our AAA tiles on console, as well as PC gamers will be eager to get their hands on some of our most desirable console titles on the PC."
The WildTangent Orb will launch with popular AAA titles from Sierra Online including 3D Ultra™ Mini Golf, Assault Heroes™, Battlestar Gallactica™ and Switchball™ as well as popular PC titles from Sierra Entertainment. THQ titles will include Juiced™ 2 Hot Import Nights™, Company of Heroes®, Company of Heroes® Opposing Fronts™, Red Faction®, Red Faction® II, Full Spectrum Warrior®, MX vs. ATV Unleashed™, Full Spectrum Warrior Ten Hammers®, Titan Quest™, Warhammer® 40,000 Dawn of War Gold and Warhammer® 40,000 Dawn of War Dark Crusade™. Also included in Orb will be more than 55 enthusiast titles from THQs Valusoft.
"THQ is committed to making its games available to gamers in the most convenient ways possible including online distribution," said Adrienne Lauer, national sales director of Market Development in the Americas, THQ. "We are excited to make our games available for the WildTangent Orb and offer our AAA games to enthusiast gamers online."
Game developers and publishers interested in making their enthusiast titles available for the April launch of the WildTangent enthusiast game console should e-mail Email Contact.
About WildTangent
Founded in 1998, WildTangent is the fastest growing online game property in the world with more than 12 million unique monthly gamers offering nearly 500 of the most popular online and downloadable games from the world's top developers and publishers including its own WildTangent Game Studios which publishes Polar Bowler, Penguins, Fate and many more.
The WildTangent Games Console ships directly on the desktops of leading PC manufacturers including Dell, HP, Gateway and Toshiba, representing more than 25 million new consumer PCs annually in North America. Gamers of all ages and demographics play more than 250 million game sessions a month across the WildTangent game network.
For more information visit www.wildtangent.com.
About Sierra Online
Sierra Online, a division of Vivendi Games, creates and publishes quality short- and mid-session, casual online games for all viable gaming platforms. Sierra Online's titles include award-winning Xbox® LIVE Arcade games Assault Heroes™ and Switchball™, in addition to 3D Ultra™ Minigolf Adventures, available for Xbox LIVE Arcade and Windows PC, and FreeStyle Street Basketball™, an online Windows-based PC game from leading Korean developer JC Entertainment, Inc. The division is also developing a variety of other Xbox LIVE Arcade and Windows-based PC online games targeting the mass-market audience.
About THQ
THQ Inc. (
Microsoft, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox LIVE, and the Xbox logos are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies and are used under license from Microsoft. "PlayStation," "PLAYSTATION" and "PS" Family logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Wii is a trademark of Nintendo. © 2006 Nintendo.