During an opening presentation at this year’s Midway Gamers' Day, interim President and CEO Matt Booty talked a bit about the company’s future with new intellectual properties, as well as announcing sequels to existing titles.
Booty outlined plans for getting Midway back on the path of profitability, detailing the company’s core strategy in investing, over the past three years, $100 million to develop a centralized technology engine. He believes this is what sets Midway apart in the industry, and they see it beginning to pay off in the quality of titles, given the ability to reuse assets and code.
“Our plans,” he said to an audience of over 400 that included press and Midway employees, “include significant front line releases, ambitious new intellectual properties, reinvigorating franchises with well-established fan bases, and new offerings in the casual market.”
The first announced title was Blitz: The League II, scheduled to ship this fall. The game will once again feature the gritty, violent style that characterized the first title, with all-new team gameplay, teams and storylines (as Booty put it) “ripped from today’s sports pages.” Only the game’s logo and a teaser were shown, with more information on the game coming at this summer’s E3.
Midway will also be focusing on the increasingly popular “casual space,” with plans to bring sequels to Touchmaster and Game Party to the Nintendo DS and Wii, respectively. Additionally, Booty also announced plans to launch a casual game Web site, with over 20 playable classic Midway arcade titles, scheduled to be accessible from both Midway.com and midwayarcade.com.
And yes, we know his last name is “Booty.”
Contest:
6:12 PM on 04.18.2008
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Seriously though, it'll be interesting to see how their plans pan out.
I really don't think the casual market needs to be mined any further though, the casual market creek's run dry.
YES.