Blade Interactive To Become Publisher

Officials from privately owned UK developer Blade Interactive have announced plans for the company to become a fully fledged publisher, beginning with its successful World Snooker Championship series, which has previously been published by Sega. The developer has enjoyed considerable press attention recently with its forthcoming console title Hydrophobia and the HydroEngine technology which underlines it. The company has also recently expanded into the middleware business with the Infinite Worlds technology suite and set up a new mobile phone development company. The company’s move into publishing will initially revolve solely around the World Snooker Championship series, although other self-published titles are to be announced shortly. The series carries an exclusive endorsement by World Snooker Limited and has sold over 2 million units over seven different iterations. The franchise will be renamed to WSC Real for future releases and the company is currently in “advanced discussions” with a number of potential distributors worldwide. Deborah Jones of Blade Interactive commented, “Blade is a company that is changing fast and this is a crucial step in our expansion plans. We are very excited at the prospect of publishing ourselves. As individuals we are no strangers to publishing and this is a natural step for us.”