Burnout bound for PlayStation Portable

Criterion's Burnout series of racing games, the third of which is set to be published by EA later this year, is to make its way to the PlayStation Portable, according to news reports citing a senior designer at the British studio.

US website GameSpot quotes an unnamed designer at Criterion as saying "yes, we are going to do it" in response to questions about bringing Burnout to the forthcoming handheld platform, although no official comment has been made by the company as yet.

Rumours about Burnout coming to the PSP have been circulating in the UK industry for some time; Criterion, of course, provides middleware for all console platforms, including the PSP, and as such creating a version of the game for the powerful handheld would - in theory - be extremely easy, especially since assets from the PS2 can be re-used in PSP development.

A PSP version of the series would almost certainly be published by Electronic Arts, which is due to publish Burnout 3: Takedown on PS2 and Xbox later this year. Burnout 3 is apparently considered to be one of the headline titles for the year by EA, which tends to suggest that the company is hoping to turn it into a major franchise going forward.

Previous iterations of the series were published by Acclaim, and did well in Europe but disappointed in the USA, despite positive reviews; something which the marketing might of EA should hopefully reverse this time around.