EA confirms new Need for Speed for 2013

Here's one we didn't pick up on earlier in the week: EA has confirmed that a new Need for Speed title will launch this year, following the success of Criterion's Need for Speed: Most Wanted reboot.

"Another Q3 success story was Need for Speed Most Wanted," the company's chief operating officer Peter Moore told investors during an earnings call on Wednesday (via Seeking Alpha). "Sell-through was up over 30% year-over-year, and outperformed the industry's other AAA racing titles.

"In this market, consumers are concentrating their choices," he added. "They don't buy two driving titles but they will buy the best one. Need for Speed is back in position as an annualized blockbuster."

While UK-based Criterion is now EA's flagship developer on Need for Speed, the publisher has also put together a supporting studio, Ghost, in Gothenburg. According to a translated interview published on the latter's website, Ghost has 65 employees but will soon expand to 85. Former DICE man Marcus Nilsson is studio head.

"I'll bring a lot of DICE attitude to game development," Nilsson commented. "DICE also have a culture where everyone can say what they think and have opinions, I want to have that here as well. But we'll be our own; we will build Ghost and make games of high quality in our own way."

A 2013 release suggests, of course, that the new Need for Speed will make its way to next generation hardware. Moore was unable to provide a release window during the earnings call, but neglected to mention Need for Speed when discussing EA's next quarter, pointing to a launch no earlier than this summer.

"We've got lots of ideas and there are people we're working with," Criterion's Craig Sullivan told OXM last year. "Do we know exactly what we're going to do next? No. Have we got lots of ideas about what we could do next? Yes.

"We're doing this year's Need for Speed, we haven't got long to go, we're getting a good reaction from the people who play it, so we seem to be heading in the right direction, pushing the envelope and trying new stuff."

It's possible EA will seek to alternate Need for Speed developers on a yearly basis, as Activision famously does with Call of Duty. I'd prefer Criterion to return to Burnout, though. What do you want from the next Need for Speed?