When Midway's interim chief exec,Matthew V. Booty, heard National Amusements owner Sumner Redstone saying that he has no plans to sell any more shares in his various companies yesterday, he might have felt much like a football manager receiving a vote of confidence from the board.

Redstone as owner of National Amusements has, according to Reuters, "been in talks with bankers to revisit terms of a $1.6 billion debt." He recently sold $233 million (£143.50m) of its nonvoting stock in CBS and Viacom. Sumner is also the controlling stockholder of Midway. In fact, his daughter, Shari E. Redstone is chairwoman of Midway's board.

The video game company - which is looking forward to the release of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe - recently announced that it was dropping a number of licenses and announced it was expecting to make a loss in the third financial quarter.