E3 2004: EA weigh in with heavy PSP support

News - New games to debut with new handheld

If ever the task facing Nintendo's DS - let alone Nokia's N-Gage - needed any further demonstrating, EA and Sony's announcement late yesterday sums the situation up, with the world's largest game publisher announcing four new PSP titles all of which will be launching on the PSP, on day one. Now that's dedication.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Need for Speed Underground, NBA Street and NFL Street will all debut at the Playstation Portable's launch in the US and Europe in early 2005, whilst the publisher also promise a further ten to twelve titles within a year.

EA's PSP offerings will drawn from their biggest franchises, we're told, and the publisher already has 100 developers hard at work on such titles right now.

"Four years ago, when Sony launched the PlayStation 2, EA was there at the forefront of the software world, delivering state-of-the-art games right out of the gate. We plan to do the same with the PSP," enthused EA top dog Don Mattrick. "The last hardware cycle taught us how crucial it is that the software line-up at launch be outstanding and how deep an impact the games have on the entire lifespan of the system. We plan to kick off the PSP launch with a bang!"