Project Cars studio pull into the Codemasters garage

Codemasters, the makers of many zoom 'em ups, apparently want more power under their hood. They purchased the entirety of Slightly Mad Studios, developers of the Project Cars and Need For Speed: Shift games, this week to the tune of £23 million. The entirety of Slightly Mad's 150-person team will reportedly join the company.

Codies said in the announcement that the purchase will help them better take advantage of the streaming market and whatever changes next-gen consoles bring. "This unequivocally establishes us as a global powerhouse in the development of racing titles," said CEO Frank Sagnier. Codemasters are best known for their F1, Dirt and Grid games.

Unfortunately, nobody had anything to say about Slightly Mad's, uh... hotly anticipated proprietary console, the Mad Box.

The announcement also quickly noted "an unannounced Hollywood blockbuster title" as part of the deal, which could certainly not be Fast and the Furious related. But I wouldn't take that bet.

This acquisition certainly boosts Codemasters' prestige within racing games, if not the size of their shadow. Slightly Mad were already busy creating whatever comes next for Project Cars, so it will be interesting to see what an influx of resources from their new owners does to the finished product. Stirling Matheson found in our Project Cars 2 review that it was well shy of perfect but a lot of fun, regardless.