Saints Row: Drive-By stopped short

When Saints Row: The Third arrives later this year, it will do so without a planned 3DS spin-off riding shotgun. THQ today confirmed reports that Saints Row: Drive-By has been sent to an early grave.

In a terse statement provided to GameSpot and other media outlets, a THQ representative said only, "We are not developing Saints Row: Drive By."

Drive-By was intended to be one aspect of a transmedia push to support this holiday season's launch of Saints Row: The Third for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. While a movie produced by Lloyd Levin (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Watchmen) has been pushed back to some time after the game's release, THQ is moving forward with the rest of the push, preparing cross-promotional licensed headsets, energy drinks, and more.

Among the first batch of third-party 3DS titles revealed, Drive-By was also reportedly in development for Xbox Live Arcade. Playing through the XBLA, Drive-By would supposedly have unlocked certain features in The Third, which in turn would have allowed players to access more content in the downloadable spin-off.