Activision is already flying high on top franchises like Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk and Call of Duty to name a few, and now the publisher can add the top selling (more than 4.5 million units in North America and Europe) and critically acclaimed Project Gotham Racing series to its portfolio.

The company today announced that it acquired U.K.-based developer Bizarre Creations, making the 160-person studio (based in Liverpool, England) a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision. Financial terms were not disclosed. Bizarre's management team and employees will continue with the company and Bizarre's teams are expected to start development on two new AAA titles alongside their current projects. Activision said the first game from Bizarre is expected to be released after fiscal year 2009.

Bizarre has more than 10 years experience in the racing category, a $1.4 billion market that represents the fourth most popular video game genre and accounts for more than 10 percent of the total video game market worldwide.

Activision said the acquisition "represents the latest step in Activision's ongoing strategy to enter new genres" following last year's purchase of RedOctane, which of course brought Activision the lucrative Guitar Hero franchise.

"Activision continues to grow and drive greater value for our shareholders by broadening our portfolio and entering new gaming categories with strong global appeal," said Robert Kotick, Chairman and CEO of Activision, Inc. "Bizarre Creations is the leading independent developer with a proven track record in developing highly successful and influential original properties, especially in the racing field. They are one of the most innovative and creative studios in the industry, and we are very excited to welcome this talented creative team to Activision."

"Bizarre Creations will play an important role in our growth strategy as we develop an original new intellectual property for this important racing segment, expand our portfolio in other genres and utilize their proprietary technology for cross platform development," added Mike Griffith, President and CEO of Activision Publishing, Inc.

Martyn Chudley, Managing Director of Bizarre Creations, commented, "Our goal at Bizarre Creations has always been to do all we can to nurture our creative and passionate teams, who excel at and enjoy what they do. Activision's independent studio model will continue giving us creative freedom to build exciting new brands. Their financial support and marketing prowess will also enable us to build upon the commercial success that we currently enjoy, and take the company - and our games - to an even higher level."

Bizarre Creations is currently finishing development on the third-person action game, The Club, for Sega, which is slated for release in early 2008. Project Gotham Racing 4 is expected to ship next week exclusively for Xbox 360, but whether that franchise will remain exclusive to Microsoft's platform is now in question. The same can probably be said for the popular Xbox Live Arcade series Geometry Wars.

[UPDATE] Bizarre Creations has now posted more information on its website.

"This is fundamentally a different deal than some you've seen around the industry recently," the company said. "Bizarre isn't a developer in financial trouble, and we're certainly not looking to be 'saved' by a bigger corporation. We're a dev looking to take our games to the next level, and make the absolute best products we can possibly make. Likewise, Activision is not in the business of 'buying out' struggling developers either."

Bizarre continued by stressing that there will be "absolutely no redundancies" and that the studio will continue largely unaffected thanks to Activision's "hands off" approach. "Bizarre continue to have creative control over what we do, we still run the studio how we see fit, and we still get to run our own web site and do all sorts of fun community things!" the company added.

Furthermore, seemingly confirming that its big franchises will become multiplatform, Bizarre said, "... we're no longer tied to just one platform for starters. Our future titles can be on whatever we please - we are a truly multiplatform studio now. Of course that doesn't mean that we'll be forced to make a port of every game to every console in existence... we simply have that option available to us."

And you can bet that Activision will want to bring the top-selling Project Gotham Racing to the PS3 and other platforms, unless Microsoft strikes a deal to keep it exclusive.

Finally, Bizarre gave a small hint about its two new AAA games for Activision. The studio said that one will be a racing game, and the other a "character game."

[UPDATE 2] GameDaily BIZ contacted Microsoft and a spokesperson said, "Bizarre Creations has been an great partner for Microsoft Game Studios and we wish them nothing but the best in the future. Project Gotham Racing is a signature racing franchise for Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE and we plan to continue the series but we have nothing further to announce."