2007 was a decent year for Midway; while the publisher cranked out a few star-studded games, such as Unreal Tournament 3, Stranglehold and BlackSite: Area 51, many of them hit a brick wall either commercially or critically (hey, at least Brendon enjoyed Stranglehold).
But Midway has its sights set on high for 2008; newly elected chairwoman Shari Redstone and CEO David Zucker fired some comments off to the Chicago Tribune about their expectations for the game publisher next year.
Redstone said, "In 2008, we plan to release an impressive slate of games and I will work closely with management… to continue pursuing exciting growth opportunities for Midway." Planned games for the first half of 2008 include NBA Ballers and wrestling game TNA Impact; a new Mortal Kombat game will be released by the end of 2008.
Zucker proposed that Midway will focus on "fewer, bigger, better" titles in 2008. In addition, Midway will hop on the Hollywood boat with more Hollywood tie-ins in 2008. This year, we saw John Woo’s Stranglehold, but next year, we’ll see Wheelman, a driving action game, with Vin Diesel starring in a planned film.
Lastly, Midway will be jumping on the casual games boat as well in 2008. They’ll devote more resources to Nintendo DS and Wii titles, along with releasing more classic arcade Midway games on Xbox Live Arcade.
