$431 million loss? Leave! Which is exactly what Scott Guthrie did about a month ago. The former Executive Vice President of Publishing for THQ was officially hired on as Executive Vice President and General Manager for MTV Games. Also joining MTV Games as Senior Vice President of Sales is David Cox the former Senior Director, Sales, and Merchandising Executive at SCEA.

“With our acquisition of Harmonix to our relationship with Jerry Bruckheimer Games, Inc., MTV Games has quickly risen to become one of the top five video gaming publishers. We're going after the best in music video gaming with Rock Band and the best in story telling with our Bruckheimer partnership, and now we have the best leaders and team in place to bring MTV Games to the next level and grow through the next evolution in video games,” says Van Toffler, the President of MTV Networks.

Guthrie will “direct the unit’s publishing strategy and execution including marketing, sales and distribution of all MTV Games products” which is a fancy way of saying that he'll be in charge of unleashing any new Rock Bands upon the masses that be, while Cox will “manage sales for the gaming division, with an emphasis on the execution of short-term distribution plans and development of long-term strategic sales strategies.” which is a fancy way of saying that he'll be in charge of making sure any new Rock Bands end up on store shelves.

While both certainly have a lot of experience in their fields, it should be noted that both come from semi-sinking ships: THQ posted huge losses last year and is going under a total rebuild, while PS3's aren't flying off shelves here in the US. Here's to hoping that things go much smoother at MTV Games.

Ben Brody is on XBOX Live - Gamertag: y2k1996