When a company has bad news, that company will often try to group all the bad news it can find into one announcement so that it has less of an impact on the financial markets. So, when THQ announced today that it expects to have a poor second financial quarter (ended September 30, 2007), it also announced that several of its games will be delayed well into 2008.

First the bad news for gamers: THQ has delayed several games (and versions of games) planned for release before March 31, 2008. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Destroy All Humans!: Path of the Furon won’t be released until THQ's fiscal 2008 year (after March 31, 2008). Also delayed in the same timeframe is the PlayStation 3 version of Frontlines: Fuel of War and de Blob for the Wii and DS.

Next, the bad news for investors: The news that started this cavalcade of delay announcements is that THQ didn’t have a very good second quarter. While the company has not released its final results for the quarter ended September 30, 2007, THQ expects that it lost money during the quarter thanks to poor sales of Stuntman: Ignition and Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights.

Sadly for THQ, it's worse than just bad sales. Publishers often offer price protection to retailers (meaning that the store will get a certain amount of money from the publisher even if the game is discounted). That's how a publisher can lose money even when a game sells a number of copies – if those copies are discounted and the publisher offers price protection. THQ simply noted that it suffered from "higher than expected price protection" on Stuntman: Ignition and Juiced 2.