I'm sure by now you've heard that Need for Speed's demise was reported a bit prematurely. Long thought to be on the chopping block as EA reshuffled their studios and fired a lot of people, it has somehow survived and has been split into thirds: a sim racer, an arcade racer, and some MMO bullshit I don't ever want to play. Microtransactions FTW.

As one of the resident racing fanatics of the Dtoid C-Blogs, I can tell you I haven't bothered with a Need for Speed game in any depth since Underground 2. And this is coming from someone who reviewed ProStreet. Does it make me happy that the series is being split apart? Yes, because it's the end of that Fast and the Furious bullshit that got old real fast. I'm more interested in the sim racer to see if they're going the GRiD route or trying to take Forza and Gran Turismo head-on. However, if the NASCAR games EA has put out are any indication, it's gonna be awful. Those games have gotten worse every year.

As for the arcade racer, we don't know enough about it, but that could be good, or at least familiar. I mean, the series has been an arcade racer for like the last 8 years, anyways. So it'll probably be decent, to say the least. And the third game? No. DO NOT WANT. It's been said the game is microtransaction heavy, and I don't want to deal with that. Apparently Asia is getting this first, which makes sense, since MMOs are totally popular over there.

But is the series salvageable at all? I'd say so, and getting away from the street racing scene is probably the best move it could have done. The sim racing game choice was the best way to go to save the series, taking the game back to its roots when it was on the PC alone. Sim racing games are still a well untapped genre, even to this day, and EA has the money to invest in creating a spectacular experience. The sim game, I think, is going to make or break this whole rebirth thing for me.

Racing fans, what say you on this news? Which of the three are you looking forward to, if anything?