Midway has announced that they'll be canceling a number of licensed titles in favor of focusing on what they called their "core properties." No word on exactly which games are getting the axe but ones tied in with strong licenses like DC Comics and TNA Wrestling appear to be safe, thankfully.

Midway Games has been on a bit of a slowdown as of late with lukewarm reception on some of its releases, controversial resignations, and so-so financial results. The company seems to have felt the need for a change in leadership, prompting old CEO David Zucker to resign and for Interim CEO and President Matthew Booty to take over. Details on the move are available in the full article after the jump.

With 2007 coming to a close in a few more days, Midway is all set for next year's upcoming releases. But not without some changes to their marketing stance. in a recent interview, Midway CEO David Zucker his game launch strategy for 2008 as "fewer, bigger, better." Find out what he meant via the full article.

Though ironic in a sense, publisher Midway Games has come up with increased losses and revenues at the end of the company's third quarter for calendar year 2007. Data derived from the company's financial reports since September 30, 2007 highlights that Midway garnered a year-on-year rise from US$ 27.5 million to US$ 36.7 million in revenue. It was noted, however, that the company also gained a US$ 0.31 loss per diluted share from last year's US$ 0.22 per.

The publisher's main performance highlights were bannered by the previously released Unreal Tournament 3 demo and the release of John Woo's Stranglehold for the Xbox 360 and PC. It was noted that the UT3 demo continued to be one of the top 2 downloaded games on popular PC file portal FilePlanet since October 12.

Midway Games forecasts a great future for the company's overall revenue come the end of the company's fourth quarter on December 31, 2007. The imminent worldwide release of Epic Games' Unreal Tournament 3 (Microsoft Xbox 360, PC, Sony PlayStation 3) on Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS X is highly anticipated, among other mainstream titles such as BlackSite: Area 51 (PC, Xbox 360), Stranglehold (PS3), and Hour of Victory (PC).

Casual and other mainstream titles include Cocoto Racing for the DS, The Bee Game for the GBA and DS, Ultimate Mortal Kombat for the DS, Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Zombie Ninja Pro-Am for the PS2, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends for the DS, and Game Party and Cruis'n' for the Wii.

To that end, the Chicago-based publisher foresees a hike up in revenue to US$ 80 million for the fourth quarter, with a US$ 0.21 loss per basic and diluted share. Overall, Midway lowers its annual target due to slow sales of the PlayStation 3 and "movement" of Nintendo DS and Wii titles.

"We remain confident that our technology strategy and product plan position us to grow both revenue and market share as we move into the heart of this console cycle," said Midway president and CEO David Zucker. He concludes that with a strong lineup of releases in the coming months, Midway will be able to accelerate its growth for 2008.

With E3 just a couple of days from now, Midway Games, Inc. has revealed the list of titles it will be presenting at the event. The company's lineup covers a wide range of genres across all major video game platforms.

Thanks to a mix of new properties and proven brands, Midway president and CEO David F. Zucker has commented that this is the company's "most diverse and strongest line up yet". Here's a list of titles Midway has lined up for E3 along with their expected shipping dates.

• Stranglehold (PC, PS3, Xbox 360; August)
• BlackSite: Area 51 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360; September)
• Unreal Tournament 3 (PC; Fall)
• Ultimate Mortal Kombat (DS, November)
• Cruis'n (Wii, November)
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force Zombie Ninja Pro-Am (PS2, October)
• Game Party (Wii, November)
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: Imagination Invaders (DS, November)
• The Wheelman (PC, PS3, Xbox 360; Winter)
• TNA Impact! (PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360; Spring)
• The Bee Game (DS, GBA, November)
• The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (PC, Available Now)
• Hour of Victory (PC, Fall)
  

Midway Games just released its total sales for Q1 of 2007 and despite having lower numbers than last year's, CEO David Zucker commented that they still exceeded their earlier expectations.

The official also added that their big guns will start appearing later in the year that's why sales were down to US$ 11.1 million from 2006's US$ 15.4 million. Zucker mentioned too that most sales were generated by the unique pre-order program for MMO video game The Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar.

Downloadable titles also did great Zucker imparted, enumerating Gauntlet, Smash TV, Root Beer Tapper, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat III as games among those that performed well on Xbox Live.

Likewise, Championship Sprint, Mortal Kombat II, and Rampage World Tour are doing good on the PlayStation Network (PSN). Also, the CEO revealed that a demo of BlackSite: Area 51 will be available at the Marketplace to help generate curiosity and excitement among players.

For Wii, lastly, Zucker promised three more unannounced titles for 2007 in addition to the forthcoming Mortal Kombat, two of those exclusive to the console.

Midway is going all out on an effort to become a titan in the next generation of console gaming as it pours roughly US$ 300 million in total investments as it develops games for the Xbox 360 and the PS3.

David Zucker, who heads the Chicago-based software developer, says that about US$ 100 million has been spent on next-generation console technology while some US$ 200 million has been poured into game development. He also revealed that they now have six studios and are planning to add a seventh as the need arises.

Zucker says that at this point, the company has decided to pull out all the stops to raise their market share from two percent to four percent of the total material out for consumers. If they can achieve that, the Midway boss says it would be a "major victory."

"We are looking to do that on next-gen platforms now. We’ve invested a lot of money and we have a lot of good product," says Zucker. Right now, Midway is 650-strong in terms of total development force, making one of the biggest in the business.

According to its latest announcement, Chicago developer and publisher Midway Games has posted better revenues in the last quarter of 2006 and the year as a whole compared to its 2005 performance. The company is famous for popular titles such as the Mortal Kombat series, Stranglehold, BlackSite: Area 51, The Wheelman, The Lord of the Rings Online, and Unreal Tournament III.

Midway president and CEO David Zucker describes 2006's last quarter as "a landmark quarter for Midway." Ge explains that it's "our largest revenue quarter in seven years that included our largest initial ship-in for a single title, Happy Feet; the culmination of our marquee franchise Mortal Kombat on current generation systems; and the kick-off of our next generation releases with Blitz: The League on Xbox 360 as well as our four Wii titles." 

The company's report says that fourth quarter sales are up at US$ 96.9 million compared to the US$ 69.8 million it made last year- a 38.8 percent increase. Losses are also down to US$ two million compared to last year's US$ 37.8 million. For the year's totality, sales are up by a significant ten percent from 2005's US$ 150.1 million to  US$ 165.6 million in 2006. Annual losses are down to $77.8 million from $112.8 million.

The company has also expressed intentions to capitalize on the Wii's good performance saying that they have been bullish initially about the platform but are now taking a "small shift to look more significantly at the Wii going forward."

Incidentally, the company revealed that the Mortal Kombat development team has been "hard at work on a next-gen version of the franchise, with an all new fighting system redesigned from the ground up leveraging our common technology base." Details are yet to be revealed in terms of release dates and as to which platforms the game will land on