Wideload signs with Aspyr for PC and Xbox title

Wideload Games, the Chicago-based studio formed by Bungie founder Alex Seropian earlier this year, has signed its first game deal - with ascendant publisher Aspyr Media set picking up the rights to the company's as-yet unnamed first title.

All that's known about the game is that it is in development for the PC and Xbox and is an action title based on the Halo engine. Several of Wideload's staff, including Seropian, worked on Halo, which remains the best-selling title on the Xbox to this day - by a huge margin.

Aspyr isn't a hugely well-known name in the global publishing market, but the company - which operates film and music publishing businesses as well as a game publishing division - has around 60 per cent market share of the games market on the Apple Macintosh platform, and is rapidly expanding into other fields.

Wideload's title is expected to be the firm's first Xbox game, but it has previously published a number of games on the PC and Game Boy Advance platforms. The company's relationship with Seropian and his team is not a new one, either - Bungie originally started life developing games for the Macintosh, including the groundbreaking Marathon series.

Earlier this year, we [interviewed Alex Seropian] just after he announced the formation of Wideload, and he discussed the studio's unique approach to game development - which focuses on a core team, who work to create a prototype, followed by the use of contracted talent to actually complete the game - as well as his thoughts on leaving Bungie.