14 DAY TRIAL // There wasn't much to stand in the way of THQ's WWE Smackdown vs. Raw, and, with a five-year streak, it seemed like it would remain an undisputed champion for a long time. But, last year, Midway released its TNA Impact series and Smackdown was suddenly no longer the king of the hill. Impact was really well received by critics and gamers, so well that Midway decided to speed up the development of a sequel. One of the reasons could have also been that the company was in quite a bit of a financial tight spot, a problem that it didn't manage to fix in time, and it was forced to enter bankruptcy.
Most of Midway ended up in the hands of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, but the license for its TNA Impact was sold to SouthPeak Interactive, as its quarterly financial report revealed just a few days ago. SouthPeak CEO Melanie Mroz talked to the company's investors and announced that it planned to release TNA Impact: Cross the Line for the PSP and PSP Go this winter. Terry Phillips, SouthPeak's chairman, also revealed TNA Impact: Dual Slam, a DS title, but this one didn't receive any release-date details.
Some pieces of news of the long-delayed Two Worlds 2 were also given away by Terry Phillips. Initially slated on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 for the first half of 2008 as a simple expansion to the original Two Worlds, the game was promoted to a full-blown sequel. The title is now expected to arrive in the spring of 2010, and, if SouthPeak knows what's good for it, it should better make sure that it turns out to be a far better game than the first one was. It released some new screens for the title last month, and they look good, but shaders don't make a game.
With these new games, the publisher hopes to improve its financial outcome even more. For the first three quarters of this financial year, SouthPeak doubled its revenues compared with last year, and announced a $687,000 net profit for the third quarter, unlike the $1.4 million lost during the same time frame last year.