EA drops into skateboarding?
What we heard: According to a handful of news stories popping up on various Web sites this morning, Electronic Arts–oft criticized for signing an exclusive deal with the NFL to make it the only gridiron game going–is looking to break up another company’s lock on a popular genre: skateboarding.
Few details are making the rounds so far, but the game reportedly will be called Skate, and will likely arrive on next-gen systems in 2007, with the PlayStation 3 a definite platform. It appears that the new issue of PSM is the source of these articles, although GameSpot’s efforts to track down a copy at area bookstores proved fruitless.
Activision’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series burst onto the scene causing a stir like the star’s signature 900. It also spawned a cottage industry of Tony Hawk knock-offs, but while all of those have since fallen by the wayside (including Activision’s own efforts in other extreme sports), the Hawk series continues to soar.
The official story: An EA representative merely confirmed that Skate was in development, and that more details would be coming soon.
Bogus or not bogus?: Not bogus. As for whether EA will emerge from its Hawk hunting expedition looking more like Ted Nugent or Dick Cheney, that’s still up on the air.
