The Burnout Team is doing Speed. Need for Speed, that is. Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello clarified that the NFS and Burnout franchise will NOT be merging into one, although the Burnout Team, frontlined by Alex Ward of Criterion Games, will be taking care of the next NFS iteration.

What to do when your event is drawing flak and your circle of supporters are leaving one by one? Try a different strategy, for one. And this is what ESA seems to be doing for next year's E3. Talks of them "going public" are circulating the Internet's grapevines. But how probable is this move?

After the Federal Trade Commission gave its blessing to continue merger negotiations, Electronic Arts and Take-Two Interactive have finally begun its closed door meeting regarding the deal. However, it seems that both parties will be rather tight-lipped regarding the details of the meeting. You can read a statement released by EA regarding their "secret negotiations" in our full article.

The Need for Speed ProStreet gig didn't work out for Electronic Arts and internal studio Black Box, but the superstar publisher decided they could still make a turnaround for the franchise again, starting with Need for Speed Undercover. Perhaps guided by the popularity of night and illegal street racing movies, Need for Speed Undercover's design resettled for the open sandbox design of Most Wanted with a different story. A story, they say, that will include Mission Impossible 3's Maggie Q.

Electronic Arts hasn't always been viewed as a publisher that puts out the greatest licensed games. Its CEO, however, took exception to that. John Riccitiello says their titles are innovative and Metacritic may just be inaccurate in some instances. More after the jump.

During a recent conference call, Electronic Arts revealed that Battlefield Heroes and Tiberium (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC) have both been delayed. Find out their new release windows after the jump.

For those of you waiting for the release of Maxis' Spore (PC, Nintendo Wii, DS, Mac, and Mobile), it seems like the long wait is finally drawing to a close. During a studio visit from producer Thomas Vu, he confirmed to CNET that the game will be going gold by next week. Everything seems good to go for the game's September release on the PC and the Mac. More details on this development in our full article.

Wedbush Morgan Analyst Michael Pachter thinks that E3 is "heading for extinction soon" because it doesn't address the core constituents of the industry, namely, media, retail, investors, and consumers. Want to find out more, then check out the full article.

Hot off EA CEO John Riccitiello's announcement of a new Need For Speed game, some less exciting revelations were dropped. The publisher revealed that two of their premiere titles won't be coming out until early 2009. The games in question are BioWare's Dragon Age and Pandemic's Saboteur. More details after the jump.

Just how rough a year was 2007 for the Need for Speed franchise? Well, things with Need for Speed ProStreet (PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, Wii) got so bad that it forced EA's hand to reform the distribution of manpower in its Vancouver studios. There will be twice the staff and longer development periods to allow devs to increase quality on their projects. More in the full story up ahead.