Need For Speed Lives On!

Could either be a good or bad thing depending on how disgusted you were with the recent games in the franchise. EA has come ut recently and said it is disapointed with the lukewarm reception to the latest in the franchise, NFS Undercover. Undercover has been dodged with poor sales and below average reviews.

Some in EA have hinted at the possibility of the eventual demise of the franchise with EA Black Box(the makers of the NFS franchise) being badly hit with lay offs. These rumours(NFS is dead rumour and not the lay offs) were however debunked by insider sources according to a destructoid article. It said:

However, recent updates have indicated otherwise -- though it spells bad news for EA any way you slice it. Joystiq received an anonymous tip from someone claiming to be an EA employee, who noted that the NFS franchise has been worked on by three teams at Black Box for a while. Those teams willl now be consolidated into one team -- which likely means that we’ll see new entries in the series being spaced out further apart.

The article went on to say:

In addition, while Need for Speed is probably still alive, it appears that the Black Box studio no longer is. The report went on to say that the 350-person development house, home to the Need for Speed and skate franchises, “most likely is” being closed down by EA. Apparently, the remaining members of the NFS and skate teams will be moved to the much larger EA Canada studio out in Burnaby (January’s release of skate 2 looks to be the studio’s last game). In fact, the informant even suggested that one of the future NFS games would be developed by Guildford, UK-based Criterion Games, and that the title would use the engine from their renowned Burnout series.

Rest in peace Black Box. Oh and thanks with screwing the NFS franchise we loved. I find the rumour that Criterion might be developing the next NFS series a bit hard to swallow. It doesn't make much sense. Why would they make a game that competes with they own series. Oh wait i forgot....EA has money.

Source : http://www.destructoid.com/rumortoid-ea-to-close-down-black-box--115195.phtml