Warner Bros. sets up shop in Australia

Australia seems to be growing its share of international game distributors with a local presence. Sega recently decided to head back down under, and now Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE) has announced that it has set up shop in Australia to handle direct distribution, sales, and marketing of both its internally developed titles and third-party games.

The first titles WBIE will take over locally will be Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal for the Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 2, as well as Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck for the Nintendo DS. Both games are scheduled for Australian release in early 2008. Future titles in 2008 will include the F.E.A.R. sequel Project Origin and the upcoming Speed Racer movie tie-in.

WBIE's Australia's marketing manager Mark Aubrey--the first and only employee thus far--told GameSpot AU that the company is planning to rapidly expand down under and was currently searching for sales people to join the new team. "We have aggressive plans--we're recruiting a sales team as well, so we can go direct to the market. From that, we'll start to build up into PR and more marketing. All of our distribution is currently being run internally by the team that runs home video for Warner [in Australia]," he said.

WBIE senior vice president for worldwide sales and distribution Ron Scott said the company wanted to expand its "games-specific retail relationships in a territory that proves to be important in the gaming landscape...WBIE is utilising its worldwide entertainment distribution, marketing, sales and research infrastructure, to ensure quality games reach the hands of consumers in Australia," Scott said in a statement.