Riccitiello details Need for Speed dev changes, shrugs off Pro Street

Speaking at the William Blair & Company's 28th Annual Growth Stock Conference EA's John Riccitiello has confirmed that the Vancouer team responsible for the Need for Speed franchise has been split and put onto longer game cycles after "torturing" at the hands of game-per-year schedules.

"Last summer we added head count and split the team in two, so now there are two teams on a 24 month cycle. And this is sort of their first 16 and-a-half month game...Because we didn't do it far enough ago to give us a full two year dev cycle," he said.

"We were torturing a very talented group of people up in Vancouver, which makes it harder to be as innovative every year. So, I think we are going to get better from here.

"I'm confident that Undercover is a much better game than Pro Street, and I expect that from this point forward they will do a lot better."

Pro Street, he admitted, was a bit bollocks.

"I thought it was an okay game, in terms of gameplay. It's not good. But who wanted Pro Street? It was a sort of made up, put numbers on the side of your car and pretend to drive your Ferrari where? Or your Porsche where?"

Thanks, GamesIndustry.