Midway/Ubi Partnership For Wheelman News

Confirming recent online speculation, Midway Games and Ubisoft have today announced a 'publishing partnership' for Midway Studios Newcastle's Wheelman.  The game, a collaborative effort with Vin Diesel's Tigon Studio, is due to launch in Europe on March 27th, although it had originally been scheduled to arrive towards the end of 2008.

The announcement comes just days after Midway Games filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States, though the application didn't effect its operations in Europe.

The publishing partnership with Ubisoft means that the French publisher will handle sales, marketing, and distribution of the title in North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Austria, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Midway will continue to direct the development of the title and retains all future rights to the franchise and will sell the title in all other European territories.

“We are pleased to be partnering with Midway to bring Wheelman to stores worldwide,” said Tony Key, senior vice president of sales and marketing, Ubisoft. “The cutting edge open-world driving technology in Wheelman should make for an experience that gamers will enjoy.”

“Ubisoft’s decision to join Midway in a co-publishing agreement is a gratifying validation of Wheelman’s potential,” commented Matt Booty, president and CEO, Midway. “Ubisoft has a proven expertise at bringing new IP to market, which will allow us to reach a broader consumer segment with Wheelman, while helping Midway to balance the risk profile of our product portfolio.”

“The development team in Newcastle, UK, has fine-tuned and polished Wheelman, especially in these last few months, to deliver a true Hollywood blockbuster experience,” said Craig Duncan, studio head, Midway Studios – Newcastle Ltd. “The demo due out for Xbox 360 and PS3 will show that Wheelman’s new game design mechanics like cinematic super moves and vehicular combat will revolutionize driving games.”

TVG spoke with the head of Midway Studios Newcastle, Craig Duncan, about Wheelman last autumn, where he talked about the game as one of the key titles for Midway in 2009, and as 'Driver done properly'.