With FIFA 13 still a long ways off, EA Sports is offering soccer fans a reprieve with the new FIFA Street relaunch. Just as Electronic Arts went back to the original name for SSX last month, the game developer is taking a fresh approach to arcade soccer and eliminating the numerology in the title. The community has already gotten a kick out of the free FIFA Street demo to near-record levels of global excitement. More than 2.1 million people have downloaded the demo in the past two weeks, making FIFA Street the second most downloaded demo—behind only FIFA Soccer 12—released by EA Sports over the past year.

EA Sports is promoting its latest Tiger Woods golf game with the help of Shaquille O’Neal. The former star of Electronic Arts’ Shaq Fu game for Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo is now using his kung fun skills against Tiger. Check out the viral video below.

EA SPORTS today predicted that defending champion LA Galaxy will continue its dominance over MLS this year, completing a record-setting regular season and winning the MLS Supporters’ Shield for the third straight year.  No team has ever finished first three consecutive MLS seasons but EA SPORTS declared LA Galaxy the winner of the upcoming 2012 MLS regular season using FIFA Soccer 12 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Phoenix Suns NBA All-Star Steve Nash talks FIFA 12 in this exclusive interview below.

When you develop something that’s considered one of the better games out there, it’s often hard to move on to the next project, as most folks will usually demand more of the same or, as tradition usually calls for, a sequel.  Kim Swift, the developer of Valve’s uber-hit Portal, has managed to do this, though, as her team at Airtight Studios showed us the other night at the Square Enix event with its upcoming Quantum Conundrum.  We gave this delightful little digital treat a run-through in a hands-on demo.

Electronic Arts has been expanding its EA Sports brand over the past few years into more mainstream areas. The latest initiative for EA Sports is a partnership with the world’s largest cruise line, Carnival. Starting with the newly redesigned Carnival Liberty ship, EA Sports Bars are changing the way people interact at sea. The EA Sports Bar features two Xbox 360 consoles, two HD TV gaming areas and an entire wall of big screen TVs for watching sports or playing any of a full library of EA Sports games like Madden NFL 12, NCAA Football 12, FIFA Soccer 12 and Tiger Woods PGA TOUR Golf 12. Eric Merz, director of guest technology at Carnival Cruise Line, gives a tour of the EA Sports Bar aboard the Liberty in this exclusive video below.

According to Forbes, pop singing sensation Justin Bieber spent a day performing motion-capture for NBA 2K13. 2K Sports worked with Bieber and his crew in Los Angeles on February 21st to capture their hoops moves, possibly for the game’s rumored celebrity street ball mode.

NBA 2K12 continues to run at a fever pitch in the second half of the shortened NBA season.  The Game of the Year edition is set to hit Best Buy store shelves next week, at a decent price of $49.99; and to help further celebrate the basketball season, Microsoft has added a new jersey to its Xbox Live Avatar line-up that New York Knicks fans in particular will take interest in.  Nope, it's not Carmelo Anthony.  It's Jeremy Lin!