It is no secret that THQ has been in financial trouble after putting out poorly received licensed titles for years and the recent flop of the uDraw tablet, but it may be worse than many expected.

The publisher announced yesterday that they will be laying off “up to 240 selling, general and administrative personnel worldwide” by the end of September 2012 and that many of the employees affected have already been notified.

Reportedly, none of the five main THQ development studios will be affected by these layoffs.

President and CEO Brian Farrell has announced he will take a pay cut from around $720,000 to $360,000 effective February 15.

The publisher has also been warned that it could face delisting from the Nasdaq stock exchange if its stock price does not rise above the dollar mark for ten consecutive days within a 180 day period.

We should have an even clearer picture of the publisher’s financial troubles later today when their third quarter fiscal results are announced sometime today.

Update #1: THQ’s third quarter fiscal results reiterated their intentions to get out of the traditional kids’ game market and put more of a focus on “premium core and fighting franchises.”

Keeping in line with this strategy, the publisher announced it “has no future commitments or plans to manufacture uDraw hardware,” as sales of the peripheral and “related software, and other titles in the kids, family and casual category were far weaker than anticipated.” Sales of the tablet came in at about $100 million less than the company had planned.

The product release schedule did provide a little hope as it seems the recent rumors of its 2014 lineup being cancelled do not appear to be true at this time. Highlights of the schedule include Darksiders 2 releasing this June and four unannounced “core titles” for its 2014 fiscal year and beyond.