Two of EA’s beloved franchises, one new and one old, are set to make a return during the fiscal ’09 calender (which runs from this upcoming April to March 2009).
The first franchise set to "see extension" is everyone’s beloved Burnout series. EA Games president Frank Gibeau wasn’t specific as to whether "extension" meant an entirely new entry, a side-product (see Burnout Legends and Burnout Dominator), or some other type of possibly downloadable content.
In contrast to Burnout, Skate is a completely new franchise. The first entry in the series launched last September on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and was a brilliant fresh of breath air when compared to Activision’s long-running Tony Hawk series.
"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 commented. "I know they’re going to come back and be competitive, but these are the fights that EA knows how to win."
Already spurring a re-imagining of Tony Hawk over at Activision, Skate managed to outsell the latest entry in the already established franchise on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. We’ll have more Skate 2 news for you soon.
Another nugget of news lies in BioWare and EA’s Mass Effect franchise. EA will take over publishing duties on Mass Effect 2, so it’s technically possible that the sequel could make the jump to Sony’s PlayStation 3. We’re sure hoping it does.