Since I work for Midway I can confirm its finished, done, over, Warners completed their rather overpriced purchase of Midway I.P not including Wheelmand and TNA. Newcastle is closed because no buyer came forward, no one really expected one to, who wants to own a studio that has a burn rate of $500,000 per month for an average driving game that is 2 years late?

When Austin was shutdown it came to light the dev team there had spent $20 Million over 4 years on "Criminal" an open world heist game but only had a one level demo to show for it, Seattle and the Surreal guys have spent $45 Million on This is Vegas which will release through Warners in late 2010 - it'll be an epic failure, it looks a mess and the dev team have no guidance or direction and are changing shit every week. Midways main problem is a dev guy running financials is never going to work and that man is Matt Booty who had no idea how to track or control studio spending and get the results, dev teams were given blank checks and nobody bothered to track the spend against quality.

Warners have no idea how to manage the I.P, they've got $500 Million to spend and no staff to run the show, they're still buying more and more assets but have absolutely no clue about runnung a games business and lifecycle management of back catalogue product.

In a way yes perhaps it is good riddance but beleive me that Warners aren't exactly the best guardians for I.P many people grew up with, another developer and publisher has gone and pretty soon you're going to be left with a FIFA and Call of Duty rammed down your throats every Christmas.Diversity in this business is essential, better managed fiscals even more so.