THQ getting Juiced

Two weeks ago, Take-Two Interactive had all but sealed the deal to buy up Juiced, the promising-looking street racer from now-bankrupt publisher Acclaim. However, that arrangement has apparently since skidded off the road, crashed into the ditch, and burst into flames.

According to papers filed Wednesday night in New York, THQ has emerged as the winner in the bidding war for Juiced. The deal could worth up to $10.5 million, a half million more than the tentative $10 million deal proposed by Take-Two. THQ's victory came at the end of a bidding war that was entered into by several companies, including Midway, Namco, Atari, and Electronic Arts (who made an eleventh-hour bid). These bigwigs were in addition to Take-Two, a company that was forced to drop its bid once it became clear that it could not iron out the legal and technical issues surrounding Juiced so that the game could be released in time for the holiday season of 2004.

Under the new deal, which is set to close on November 19, THQ will release the game for the PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 2 sometime in the summer of 2005. THQ will also pay undisclosed royalties to Fund4Games, the Scotland-based venture capital group that helped fund Juiced's development.