Criterion Doing Need for Speed, Battlefield 3 In The Works News

Speaking at the William Blair Growth Stock Conference, EA has revealed that its Need For Speed franchise will be put into the thoroughly capable hands of Burnout developer Criterion, while DICE is hard at work on Battlefield 3.

Rumours arose last month linking Criterion to the Need For Speed franchise, although this is the first we've heard straight from the horse's mouth after EA's Chief Operating Officer, John Pleasants told investors:

"We've taken the Burnout team and combined it with our Need For Speed franchise. So we now have that in our favour because that Burnout team is probably one of the more online-centric and notably high-quality game developers that we have out at Criterion," said Pleasants (reports G4TV).

Reports elsewhere on Kotaku, citing EA's CEO John Riccitello talking at E3, suggest that Criterion will be producing the next Need For Speed after Slightly Mad Studios' NFS Shift this year. Riccitello did clarify, however, that the Burnout and NFS franchises won't be blending into one.

Getting back to the William Blair Conference, John Pleasants also mentioned that Battlefield 3 is in development at DICE, which will no doubt be music to the ears of diehard Battlefield 2 fans who are tiring of the more recent Battlefield: Bad Company games.

"I've had the luxury of looking at Battlefield 3 over at DICE in Sweden and was highly impressed by the way the team is working on that product," Pleasants stated. "Of course, that's not [coming out] in the fiscal year, but that is a product that is looking very good."

This positions the release of Battlefield 3 sometime after March 2010. Could this be linked to the leaked Battlefield 3 project we reported on way back in 2007? If so, then it's been a long time coming. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is due out later this year.