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Criterion's Need for Speed next year

Yearly schedule to continue, EA says.

EA Games president Frank Gibeau has said confirmed that Criterion's Need for Speed game will keep up the series' yearly pace and launch in 2010.

"Next year's Need for Speed has been under development now for some time at our award-winning Criterion Studio," he told investors during a conference call yesterday, according to Joysitq.

The Burnout developer has been known to be working on EA's premier racing franchise for some time, and company chief John Riccitiello confirmed it back in June. Nothing's known about it, however.

Criterion's game will follow in the footsteps of this year's Need for Speed: Shift and Nitro, which were intended to relaunch the long-running series after several years in the doldrums.

"In recent years, we failed to put adequate resources behind the franchise and, as a result, quality suffered," Gibeau admitted.