EA planning up to six PSP launch titles

EA is planning to have as many as six titles available for the PlayStation Portable's American and European launches in 2005 according to Warren Wall, producer at the publisher's PSP-focused development studio Team Fusion.

"In North America, we will launch updated versions of Need for Speed Underground Rivals and Tiger Woods PGA Tour," Wall said in an interview on EA's website. NFSU and Tiger Woods were confirmed as Japanese launch titles at the Tokyo Game Show last month.

Those games will be joined by "NBA Street, NFL Street and a couple more titles that have yet to be revealed," according to Wall. There's no word on what those titles might be, but if there's any symmetry between the publisher's plans for PSP and Nintendo DS, then they could well be GoldenEye Rogue Agent, Madden NFL or The Urbz: Sims in the City.

Wall also said that connectivity between PS2 and PSP is "definitely something that we're looking at for upcoming titles," and promised that the publisher's handheld titles would be just as "deep, as fun and as exciting as our console games," with new modes that "add hours of replay value".

The PlayStation Portable is currently set for release in Japan before the end of this year, although Sony has yet to announce a release date or price point, while gamers in the US and Europe should get their hands on it in the first few months of 2005.