13 February 2008
Josh

New Burnout, Skate and Need for Speed games inevitable

In an industry presentation today, EA revealed that new Burnout, Skate and Need for Speed games are inevitable (definitely not a surprise).

EA Games President Frank Gibeau revealed that both Burnout and Skate would “see extension” in the publisher’s fiscal year 2009 (which runs from this April through March of 2009) although he didn’t specify if that meant proper sequels or side projects such as Burnout Legends and Burnout Dominator, or some other form.

Since Burnout Paradise was a success, it’ll be interesting to see what direction they take the series for the next installment, even though we won’t know first details for a while, since Paradise just hit the gaming scene.

As for Skate, the relatively new property made it’s debut last September to challenge the Skate-God that is Activision’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series, which has had a stranglehold on the extreme sports skateboarding genre for two generations.

“Tony Hawk has been the Madden of that category for a very long time, and our performance in this first year of skateboarding has greatly exceeded my expectations,” Gibeau told investors. “I know they’re going to come back and be competitive, but these are the fights that EA knows how to win.”

The industry-tracking NPD Group has reported that through December Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground outsold Skate when you combine all versions of the game. However, EA’s Skate did outsell it’s rival on the Xbox 360 & PS3, the only two platforms the game appeared on in comparison to Proving Ground’s five platforms (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, DS and PS2). Which has spurred Activision to retool the Tony Hawk franchise for a new direction in the next installment so it can better compete with it’s new competitor.

And then there’s the Need for Speed franchise, which will also be taken in a new direction since the last installment, Need for Speed: ProStreet, didn’t meet EA’s sales expectations. Gibeau said he thinks it was because the series drifted too far from what consumers expected. ProStreet had dropped the tuner culture and police evasion aspects of previous installments in favor of perfectly legit closed track racing. For the next Need for Speed, Gibeau promised that the series would be getting back to its roots with a number of features, including open-world racing and a new highway battle mode.

Lastly is Mass Effect, which EA has already announced that in addition to planning the series as a Mass Effect trilogy, EA will publish Mass Effect on PC. And it might even continue long after the trilogy has closed off. In Gibeau’s presentation today he told analysts that it “will be a franchise for EA for a very long time.”