UFC Undisputed 2010 Message Board

Good news and bad news about UFC Personal Trainer. The good news is that if you buy the Xbox 360 version online or in store from Best Buy, you'll get a free copy of UFC Undisputed 2010. That way, if you get tired of actually performing all those deadly combat moves with your body, you can take a break and engage in some virtual grappling, and then let Brock Lesnar's improbably overmuscled frame on the box art inspire you to get back to your workout.

Now, the bad news. That copy of Personal Trainer might need to take a periodic, unscheduled break of its own -- users are reporting freezing issues with the training game, at least on Xbox. THQ is aware of the problem, which it attributes on the UFC Personal Trainer blog (currently offline) to "unforeseen server issues." The publisher is working on a fix, expected "shortly." And then you can get back to your training regimen, which is definitely guaranteed to make you as inhumanly, inconveniently beefy as Brock Lesnar.

[Thanks, D!]

#sports Zuffa llc, the parent company of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, has bought out mixed martial arts' second largest promotion, Strikeforce. The acquisition could mean only one MMA video game going forward. More »

#iphone Following EA Sports MMA into mobile gaming, THQ's mixed martial arts franchise UFC Undisputed will hit the iPhone and iPad this week, a company executive says. More »

Publisher gains exclusive rights for the next eight years.

THQ's rights to the UFC license will remain Undisputed until 2018. The publisher announced today that it has extended its "exclusive, worldwide agreement" with Zuffa, LLC to create games based on the ultimate fighting franchise for the next eight years. The agreement grants THQ the option to create games for all consoles, PC, handhelds, mobile devices and social media. We can't wait to see someone gift us a "Punch in the Junk" on Facebook.

The deal's price tag wasn't shared publicly. Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter guesstimates: "[THQ] pay a percentage of sales against a minimum guarantee. My guess is that it's a 15% license, and that the guarantee is around $10 million a year."

The UFC license has been good to THQ, despite the decline in sales for the franchise's second iteration. THQ's current strategy to combat potential annual fatigue is to give the series a "longer development cycle," which means the next installment is expected to arrive sometime in the second half of 2011 at earliest.

Better late than never.

Become the next UFC champion.

It may not sport the graphics of the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game, but the PSP version of UFC Undisputed 2010 looks mighty impressive for a handheld brawler. This new trailer shows the first Undisputed game on PSP in motion.

"We thought based on the preorder trends that we saw and what we were hearing from retailers and consumers alike and we built our plans for growth in UFC this year," THQ CEO Brian Farrell said on an earnings call today. However, with 2.7 million units sold relative to last year's 2.9 million units in the same period, it's clear the sequel didn't show signs of "growth." (Was it Red Dead's fault?)

After reaffirming it as "still a top franchise" Farrell told the call, "What we're thinking about - not to necessarily reinvigorate it because it's a great franchise - but as I said in my prepared remarks, we're considering a longer development cycle. 15-, 18-, 21-months between releases rather than annually." That increased development time will, ostensibly, increase product quality and, with fewer releases, increase consumer demand. That combined with the UFC training and fitness game (not to mention PSP ports), Farrell assures analysts that "We think there's a lot of growth to be had with the UFC franchise over the next several years."

Farrell is quick to declare that there will be a UFC game in the next fiscal year. "We will have a UFC title in fiscal '12," he said directly. "The question is timing, as I said. Could it be 15-, 18-, 21-months? That depends on both the scope of the game, the window, and how we want to release that game. As I said in my prepared remarks, we thought maybe a 12-month cycle might be a little quick but it'll be somewhere around 18-months give or take a few months."

If you consider this year's UFC Undisputed 2010 on a 12-month dev cycle, an 18-month cycle would put its successor somewhere around late November 2011, smack dab in the middle of the busy holiday shopping season. Might be a tough spot for a UFC game to fight its way out of.

Publisher may not release titles on an annual basis.

#thq After a long, money and talent-bleeding period, publisher THQ had a pretty damn good last year. The Darksiders and Red Faction maker thanked UFC Undisputed and Red Faction for that. This year is not off to the same great start. More »

While THQ may be rebounding in terms of brand and product quality, that doesn't mean it can simply take the express bus to Money Town. There's more to running a successful entertainment business than simply making well-received games.

For its fiscal 2011 first quarter ended June 30, 2010, the publisher reported net sales of $149.4m driven primarily by UFC Undisputed 2010. While that sounds like a lot of scratch, that's compared with last year's sales for the quarter of $243.5m, driven by UFC 2009 Undisputed and Red Faction: Guerrilla. The earnings report explains, "No title comparable to Red Faction: Guerrilla was released during the first quarter of fiscal 2011." With sales down, losses are up, with a net loss of $30.1m for the quarter compared with a net income of $6.4m for the same period last year.

So with all bets on UFC 2010 for the quarter, and despite a stronger Metacritic score, it managed to move just 2.7m units compared with 2.9m units for its predecessor last year. "We built our plans for growth in UFC this year," Farrell told investors.

Though no new major titles are planned for the company's upcoming Q2 period, the remainder of the fiscal year holds releases for both Homefront and Red Faction: Armageddon, and THQ expects non-GAAP net sales "in the range of $845 million to $865 million" and "roughly breakeven" earnings for the year. The focus is very much on fiscal 2012, which includes major releases like Warhammer 40000: Space Marine and Darksiders 2. "We also delivered our most critically acclaimed E3 showing ever with a strong line-up of games in development, several of which are based on proven long-term franchises," Farrell says. "Our goal this fiscal year continues to be to position THQ for growth in fiscal 2012 and beyond."

THQ's fighter heads to Sony's portable this fall.

THQ is shrinking the giant men of the UFC down to fit into a handheld system. The publisher announced a PSP version of UFC Undisputed 2010, entering the retail Octagon on September 7. Perhaps what the game needed to hit sales targets was another version.

The portable UFC includes "an unparalleled roster" of over 100 fighters, as well as the option to create your own, with customizable movesets. The PSP release also includes support for Ad-Hoc mode for local multiplayer fightin'. This will cause much less property damage than meeting your friends at Starbucks for a couple of real mixed martial arts matches.

Amazon's upping the ante to try and move more units of its recently discounted Final Fantasy XIII Xbox 360 bundle. According to the retailer's Twitter account, the $300 package will come with free copies of UFC Undisputed 2010 and BioShock 2 when purchased this coming Monday.

Last month, THQ reported some not-so-awesome sales figures for its second annual entry into the UFC Undisputed franchise -- to the tune of an almost 50 percent decline from sales for last year's first stab at game-ifying the sport. In a recent discussion with the print version of MCV (via CVG), Jon Rooke, the company's UK marketing director, provided one possible explanation for the decrease: "That's largely down to Red Dead Redemption," Rooke explained.

Though Undisputed 2010 has managed to ship a sizable 2.6 million units, Rooke stated that the title hasn't "delivered the broader sales yet." He added, "Rockstar have probably taken a fair amount of our market share. They shipped 5m units, taking a lot of consumer dollars." We know exactly what he's talking about: We picked up Red Dead Redemption instead of UFC because we heard the former had really great wrasslin' -- but we were unfortunately greeted with hours of rustlin' instead.

#thq UFC Undisputed 2010's poor sales, earlier reported to be down more than 50 percent from last year's breakout hit UFC 2009 Undisputed, now have a reason: THQ says Red Dead Redemption sucked up all the oxygen in May. More »

#gameface The UFC's Pat Barry, Cain Velasquez, Joe Stevenson, Gray Maynard, and Dan Hardy at E3 showing their less scary side at the UFC Undisputed 2010 booth. More »

THQ today updated its guidance for its first fiscal quarter in 2010, which ends June 30, as well as its entire fiscal 2010, ending March 30, 2011. Previously, the company had predicted non-GAAP first quarter net sales to be between $190 and $200 million. THQ has now lowered its first quarter guidance to between $155 and $165 million. The corresponding outlook for fiscal 2010 has been lowered from between $905 and $920 million to between $845 and $865 million.

The culprit for the guidance shift? "Lower-than-anticipated sales of UFC Undisputed 2010, and the strengthening dollar," according to THQ president and CEO Brian Farrell. Even though pre-orders were 50 percent higher than the 2009 iteration, noted Farrell, sell through of the 2.6 million shipped units has been "below [THQ's] expectations, and prior-year results."

Farrell sated that THQ has "a strong pipeline scheduled for release over the next three years" and asked that "everyone" try out its offerings on the E3 show floor. You can bet we'll be doing just that in the days ahead.

Initial shipment numbers reach 2.6 million units.

#stickjockey With UFC Undisputed 2010 two weeks ago, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 this week, the era of pay-to-play multiplayer has come to sports video games. Nothing we've seen so far suggests it'll be a brief experiment. More »

#thq The breakout hit of 2009, both in sales and acclaim, UFC Undisputed 2010 followed up with plenty of strong reviews but nowhere near the cash register performance of its predecessor, according to an analyst. More »

Players compete to win Ultimate Fighter pack, UFC replica championship belt and Xbox 360 Elite.

#review No game took an emerging sport to the mainstream in its first edition like UFC 2009 Undisputed did last year. But once you join sports gaming's A-list, even in your rookie year, you have to start making sequels. More »

#dlc THQ's decision to put UFC Undisputed 2010's multiplayer behind a "Project $10" one-use code was controversial enough. Its slapdash implementation in the game couldn't make the publisher look worse. More »

#thq THQ's new mixed martial arts fighter UFC Undisputed 2010 features a surprising cameo, the only known practitioner of the Shaq Fu arts, basketball player and Kazaam star Shaquille O'Neal. More »

What’s up, everyone! I’m Wes Bunn, and I’m one of the game designers on UFC Undisputed 2010. Just wanted to take some time to give some perspective on what went into this year’s game. If you’re a fan of MMA, fighting games, or you just want to virtually choke out, punch, or kick one of your friends in the face, we think you’ll find something to be excited about.

First off, let me just say that everyone on our team truly loves MMA. We’re all fans of the sport, just like you. We get together and watch the fights all the time, and some of us actually train! The bottom line is that we’re gamers, we love MMA, and we truly want to make the absolute best MMA game possible.

With that said, I think you will be pleased with the amount of changes and additions we’ve made to this year’s game. The game plays so much faster than last year, is much more fluid and responsive, and the gameplay adjustments we’ve made (such as the Sway System and Cage Interaction) add a whole new level of strategy. The game is just fun to play! Even if you haven’t played last year’s game, it’s easy to pick up and start punching and kicking each other, but things can get really deep if you spend the time and invest in it. You should see the five-round wars we have in the office — it gets intense!

Here’s a sample of some of the new gameplay features we’ve added:

• Southpaw and Stance Switching
• Sway System
• Cage Interaction
• Submission Switching
• Unified Grappling Controls
• Ground Posture System
• A-La-Carte Move Acquisition System
• Doctor Stoppages

As far as modes, not only did we revamp all of the returning modes, but we’ve added a whole bunch of new ones, many of which our fans requested. Career Mode, I’d say, probably received the biggest overhaul. We’ve added the ability to change weight divisions, a stat decay and management system, pre- and post-fight interviews, more cutscenes like weigh-ins and press workouts, and the a-la-carte move acquisition system that allows players to make truly unique fighters one move at a time. In addition, we’ve also added a move proficiency system that allows for specialization in certain individual techniques (for example, you can be the dude with the super tight guillotine or be very good at a particular sweep or transition), introduced the World Fighting Alliance, a pre-UFC starting promotion where you’ll start your MMA career, as well as the new Game Is Watching You (GIWY) commentary and AI system, which monitors your performances and tailors the AI and commentary accordingly based on your progression through your career. There’s so much new stuff in Career Mode, but I’ll resist telling you everything because I don’t want to spoil some of the surprises you’ll encounter.

In addition to the returning Career, Create-a-Fighter and Online Modes, here’s a breakdown of some of the new modes in UFC Undisputed 2010:

• Title Mode
• Title Defense Mode
• Tournament Mode
• Event Mode
• Ultimate Fights Mode

For PlayStation 3 owners, there’s a ton of exclusive content available just for you. In the Ultimate Fights Mode, we’ve added five additional fights, each with its own challenges and unlocks that you won’t be able to get anywhere else:

• UFN 18 – Carlos Condit vs. Martin Kampmann
• UFC 60 – Matt Hughes vs. Royce Gracie
• UFC 66 – Keith Jardine vs. Forrest Griffin
• UFC 68 – Martin Kampmann vs. Drew McFredries
• UFC 102 – Nate Marquardt vs. Demian Maia

Also exclusive on PlayStation 3 are the following legendary UFC fighters:

• Royce Gracie
• Jens Pulver
• Dan Severn

Finally, thanks to Blu-Ray, we were able to add some full-length fight videos for you hardcore fans out there:

• The Ultimate Fighter Finale – Stephan Bonnar vs. Forrest Griffin
• UFC 94 – Georges St-Pierre vs. BJ Penn
• UFC 98 – Lyoto Machida vs. Rashad Evans
• UFC 79 – Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva
• UFC 100 – Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir

We’re really excited about all the new stuff in this year’s game, and we want to hear your thoughts on it! Head over to UFCUndisputed.com and give us your feedback, as I assure you it will not go unnoticed! See you online in the virtual Octagon!

Let's go to the judge's scorecard…

Get the game and meet some up and coming fighters.

Before you enter an octagon full of belligerent fighters in UFC Undisputed 2010, why not prepare by visiting a strip mall full of sleepy nerds? GameStop is holding midnight launch events for the mixed martial arts title in 3,100 of its stores on the night of May 24. There, you'll be able to commune with your fellow UFC fans and pick up a new copy of the game at the earliest possible opportunity -- and you do want to buy it new. Check here to find out if any GameStops near you are participating.

If you pre-order the game before then, you'll get access to four unlockable fighters from the Ultimate Fighter TV series. If you pre-order the PS3 version, you'll get three more fighters, as well as a Blu-ray disc with footage of five classic UFC fights. That is indisputably a lot of bonuses.