Has the Need for Speed Series been given the boot?

The racing genre is a fairly crowded market with tons of titles all clamoring for a fairly small slice of the gaming public. With franchises like Burnout, Midnight Club, and Gran Turismo all vying for consumer wallets, it’s just a matter of time before something gives and at least one series spins out and hits the wall. Now the question becomes, is it the Need for Speed car that’s going to end the race DNF?

A rumor cropped up this week that EA was canceling its long-standing racing franchise due to corporate downsizing and brand underperformance. It was speculated that the sluggish sales of Need for Speed: Undercover, coupled with the extreme expense of keeping three teams working at all times in order to assure an annual entry into the title was just too much, and that EA would rather focus its resources elsewhere. In short, the company was looking to cut and run from one of its more troubled franchises.

Turns out though, like so many rumors, this one contained a grain of truth, but didn’t get the whole story. After doing a bit more digging, Joystiq found out that EA wasn’t planning to scrap Need for Speed at all, but rather had decided to shut down the studio which is responsible for it. Apparently EA has decided that Black Box, the studio in charge of the NFS project (as well as Skate), just isn’t financially viable anymore, so the entity will be dissolved and its employees will be moved to the gargantuan Burnaby offices.

As for Need for Speed itself, how can it continue to exist if its team is gone? Well a source inside EA is saying that the series will be handed over to Criterion, and that future editions will likely run on the same engine that powers the Burnout games. So those worried about the series’ future should know that it’s in good hands.

It would appear that our worries about the end of a franchise are for naught, and that NFS will continue burning up the streets for the forseeable future, just with a new name on the case and in the opening credits. While we hate to see a studio close, tough economic times like these often call for sacrifice, so we just hope all the Black Box folks land on their feet. The good news is that the rumor’s been killed, the bad news is so has one of EA’s studios.

TGR Verdict: Rumor Killed