Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS) be steering the desirable "Need all for Speed" franchise encircled by a unsullied direction.
The video squad game publisher announced ceremony Friday to pivot decayed the 15-year-old race fibre into three driving games against contrasting platform. The new games will alacrity into three isolated genre -- replication, undertaking and portico racing.
"It's all in the decree of craft different games for different audience," said Keith Munro, EA marketing vice president. "The 'Need for Speed' discoloration is logically key. It have splendid confession, even uncovered of gaming. When we talk to consumers about what the brand designed to them, we realize that it could be stretched to new limitations on different platforms." The new games, appointed to be released latter this year, be "Need for Speed Shift," a first-person racing simulation for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 ; "Need for Speed World Online," a multiplayer action-driving game for the PC; and "Need for Speed Nitro," an arcade-style racing game built-up near EA Montreal for the Nintendo Wii and DS.
"In the olden, our 'Need for Speed' games have done extremely okay on all platforms," Munro said. "We lone deduce we can playing out recovered enclosed new think wakeful. We if lawfulness be tell have the opportunity to devote an entirely new studio and garrison team to the finding of a from-the-ground-up Nintendo-only 'Need for Speed' game. We didn't have those treasures untaken past." Munro said EA Black Box, the Canadian developer that created all earlier "Need for Speed" game, has be collaborate with developer Slightly Mad Studios on "Need for Speed Shift" and EA Singapore on "Need for Speed World Online." He also said Black Box is continuing to donkey work on a new action driving game, in the face of recent companywide layoffs .
"They will fixed be very by a long style entangled in the development of 'Need for Speed' products," Munro said. "Over the years, we've ask the Black Box team to deliver a new 'Need for Speed' game every year. We've gone to a twosome of new studios to deliver subsequent fall's games to inject moistness into the category and impart the Black Box team occurrence to retrench." The new games have been in development for two years. The resourceful "Need for Speed" be released in 1994 for the 3DO, PC, PlayStation and Sega Saturn system. The chronicle recent game, "Need for Speed Undercover," was released end November for the PlayStation 2 , PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, Wii and PC.