<p>While talking Project Natal, EA COO reveals Burnout developer is now under the hood of the publisher's street-racing series; EA CEO says shop crafting "revolutionary" new entry in franchise--which may delay the next Burnout. </p><p><img src="http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/"></p><p>
During the same investors conference presentation where <a class='gslink' href='http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/battlefield3/news.html?page=1&sid=6211809'>he revealed Battlefield 3</a>, Electronic Arts chief operating offering John Pleasants dropped another bombshell. Specifically, he blew the lid off one of EA's historically most successful franchises, Need for Speed, which was
<a href="http://gamespot.com/6203924" target="new">trifurcated into three subseries in January</a>: Need for Speed: Shift (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PSP, and PC), Need for Speed: Nitro (Wii, DS), and the massively multiplayer online game Need for Speed: World Online (PC).
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<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/images/0/1/?path=2009%2F028%2Fnfs_shift413_screen.jpg&caption=A%2Btrue%2BShift%2B to%2BCriterion%253F&blog=1&cvr=zoz.">
<img class="thumb" src="http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2009/028/nfs_shift413_embed.jpg" alt="" /></a><p class="caption"><a href="http://www.gamespot.com/images/0/1/?path=2009%2F028%2Fnfs_shift413_screen.jpg&caption=A%2Btrue%2BShift%2B to%2BCriterion%253F&blog=1&cvr=zoz.">A true Shift to Criterion?</a></p></div>
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Initially, Pleasants discussed the three-way split, which will see independent shop Slightly Mad Studios develop Shift, EA Montreal work on Nitro, and EA Shanghai and the <a class='gslink' href='http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/sports/skate2workingtitle/news.html?page=1&sid=6203548'>downsized EA Black Box</a> craft Need for Speed World Online. "We've put a huge effort into reengineering the whole franchise," explained the executive. "Different teams very much reengineered how we're making this product; lots of good work went into that, and the product quality is totally going to show it."
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Then, Pleasants let slip a major literal shift for the franchise. "We've got staggered teams now, so we're not in the 12-month cycle grind, which is really the biggest thing we had to break. <i>We've taken the Burnout team and combined it into the Need for Speed franchise</i>. Now we have that in our favor because Burnout is from probably one of the more online-centric and high-quality developers that we have, Criterion." (Emphasis added.)
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Almost simultaneously to Pleasants' speech going up via webcast, gaming blog <a href="http://kotaku.com/5285730/ea-burnout-devs-making-revolutionary-need-for-speed" target="new">Kotaku</a> posted highlights from an interview it did with EA CEO John Riccitiello during last week's
<a href="http://e3.gamespot.com/" target="new">Electronic Entertainment Expo</a>. In it, the executive confirmed Criterion Games head Alex Ward is overseeing development of a new, unnamed Need for Speed game--and that the project has apparently taken precedence over the next Burnout title.
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"I don't think you can fold Burnout into Need for Speed because a lot of people like Burnout," Riccitiello said. "[But] we don't have a plan right now for a separate major launch on Burnout because the team doing it is working on <i>a revolutionary take on Need for Speed</i>." (Emphasis added.)
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Other than to repeatedly say that Need for Speed and Burnout would remain distinct series, Riccitiello didn't elaborate much. Pleasants, though, expounded on EA's determination to make the former series a top seller once again. "Look, Need for Speed is one of the great franchises," he said. "I believe it's a top-10 seller in game-industry history. It's a backbone brand for EA, and it's one that has sold to 10 million units, now selling about 5 million units as the quality has eroded. So what's new in Need for Speed is a deep commitment to getting that title and that franchise back to its glory days."
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Pleasants also touched on the Project Natal-optimized version of Criterion's last game, Burnout Paradise, which was shown off both at <a href="http://e3.gamespot.com/press-conference/microsoft-e3/" target="new">Microsoft's E3 Press Conference</a> and on last night's episode of <a class='gslink' href='http://www.gamespot.com/news/blogs/sidebar/909182374/26916016/natal-burnout-demod-on-fallons-late-night.html'><i>Late Night with Jimmy Fallon</i></a>.
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Pleasants said that EA had known about the project "for some time’we didn't learn about it at E3. We've known about it for months. I think you saw that Burnout was one of the products that was tested there, so we've had access to that software long enough to take a project like Burnout and make it Natal-ized."
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"If I were in Microsoft's shoes, I would think of Natal like a new console," he continued. "If it is deployed correctly and we as third parties can leverage it correctly, then there's a lot of innovation that will feel innovative like another round of a console [would]. For us, that's positive because, yes, we have to do new dev for another controller, but we don't have to do new dev for a new platform. It's a different level of investment. [But] that doesn't take any of the onus off the innovation. We still have to figure out the hit-making sauce for Natal versus a non-Natal 360. They're probably going to be different."
</p> <p><a href="http://www.gamespot.com/psp/driving/needforspeedshift/news.html?sid=6211872#post_comment">Read and Post Comments</a> | <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/psp/driving/needforspeedshift/news.html?sid=6211872">Get the full article at GameSpot</a></p>
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"<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/psp/driving/needforspeedshift/news.html?sid=6211872">Need for Speed in Criterion's garage</a>" was posted by Tor Thorsen on Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:30:47 -0700
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Posted on Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:30:47 -0700 at http://www.gamespot.com/psp/driving/needforspeedshift/news.html?sid=6211872