As you may already know, Midway Games isn't doing too hot. They filed for bankruptcy last week and now Ubisoft is stepping in to help them publish their Vin Diesel action driving game Wheelman.

Ubisoft will distribute, sell, and market the game in the biggest territories: North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Austria, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. Midway will handle the publishing duties in all other European countries and will continue to oversee the game's development, which is taking place at their in-house studio in Newcastle. Midway will keep the rights to produce sequels as well.

The press release announcing this "strategic relationship" also mentions that a demo will be released for the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Wheelman prior to the game hitting stores. It's set to be released for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC on March 24th in North America and on March 27th in Europe.

Why hand over publishing of a nearly complete game to Ubisoft? Said Matt Booty, Midway's head honcho: "Ubisoft has a proven expertise at bringing new IP to market, which will allow us to reach a broader consumer segment with Wheelman, while helping Midway to balance the risk profile of our product portfolio.” In other words, they want to cushion the (potential) blow of a flop. A flop involving Vin Diesel? Inconceivable, yes, but it doesn't hurt to be on the safe side when you're already bankrupt.