EA Games' Frank Gibeau admits the publisher "failed to put adequate resources" behind the racing franchise and it suffered in quality.

Need for Speed is on the road to recovery though, with Burnout developer Criterion's take on the series expected to release sometime next year.

The collective might of the Need for Speed franchise cannot be denied as publisher EA reveals it has screeched past 100 million sales worldwide, topping $2.7 billion revenue.

EA Games' Frank Gibeau says it's "a huge honor" to have such a franchise, and thanks the millions of fans for "driving us to this milestone." Need for Speed began in '94, and now has 15 titles.

Remedy Entertainment has re-released its 1996 top-down racing game Death Rally for free. The original game has been ported to run on modern PCs, for Windows.

Download it here.

Publisher Black Bean, along with developer Milestone, will be taking on DiRT from Codemasters as they've just inked a three-year deal for World Rally Championship.

They plan on turning it into an annual franchise with the first due in spring on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Milestone has "a lot of respect" for their rivals, will try to "match and possibly beat" them.

Remedy Entertainment have posted a new trademark filing for the 1996 title Death Rally, which means it could be cooking a new game or maybe just planning a re-release.

Either way some Death Rally looks to be in the future. The original top-down racer with guns was launched back in '96 and needed a meaty 8MB of RAM, not to mention a 2x CDROM. Phew.

Black Bean Games have announced that it's working on a new World Rally Championship game for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The game is being developed by Black Bean Games and its in-house studio Milestone, who brought us MotoGP and SBK Superbike.

Executive producer Gavin Raeburn has left publisher Codemasters after having successfully rebooted two racing franchises. He was "at the top" of his game.

Raeburn leaves "an incredibly talented team" behind at Codemasters that he put together. They include "key players" who will push their "racing portfolio forward." He's wished well.

Some blue skied artwork for Sega Racing Classic has caused fans to feel nostalgic for Daytona, Sega's old racing series that make up its arcade heritage.

Avid watchers of all things Sega spotted the very Daytona USA-like feel to the artwork. It's developed by AM2, and has all the same characteristics except for the RingWide symbol.

The Crash Time series isn't a big contender on the Xbox 360, as its popularity in fact doesn't travel much beyond Germany. However that hasn't stopped another sequel.

Crash Time III will be burning rubber and crashing some on the tracks when it arrives for Xbox 360. Until then some screenshots of the racing action have been splashed around.

Next year the desktop will be getting TrackMania 2, with PCs that can already run the existing TrackMania Nations Forever, being able to play the sequel just fine.

Nadeo showcased their next instalment at the Paris Games Festival. Cam footage of the announcement and the first glimpse of the game has been posted on mighty YouTube.

Developer RedSpotGames has come out with news that Dreamcast can expect a new title this October when they release Rush Rush Rally Racing through online retailers.

The racing game uses a retro style in a Micro Machines kind of way, with the studio releasing a trailer for Dreamcast fans. This is in celebration of the Sega consoles 10th anniversary.

EA Sports boss Peter Moore has revealed they've parked up NASCAR in favour of the new mixed martial arts franchise they started. Need for Speed to fill the void?

Moore "thoroughly enjoyed" the relationship with NASCAR when he first arrived, but EA Sports MMA looks too good to pass up. EA "had to redeploy" the racer devs to the MMA project.

EA has revealed the system requirements for the PC version of Need for Speed: Shift. It looks like this should be able to run on the vast majority of machines.

Project Gotham Racing developer Bizarre Creations is behind Activision's upcoming racer Blur, blending high octane cars with Mario Kart style antics and shenanigans.

The studio wanted to "move beyond traditional racers" and bring back some mayhem. It has 20-player online races with 4-player split-screen offline. It's for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

Codemasters confirmed today that Colin McRae: DiRT 2 will be shipping on September 8th in North America and with a UK release date of September 11th.

Colin McRae: DiRT 2 is set to take racing games to a new level with thrilling new race types, striking locations, big event atmosphere and a peerless line-up of super-charged speed machines, each selected to deliver spectacular, fast paced racing.

Codemasters announced today that the Games for Windows LIVE edition of Colin McRae: DiRT 2 will support the advanced features that are available in DirectX 11.

With DirectX 11 hardware expected to ship in the second half of 2009, and DirectX 11 coming to home computers with the release of Microsoft Windows 7 on October 22, 2009, Codemasters also announced that the Games For Windows LIVE edition of Colin McRae: DiRT 2 will benefit from an extended development program to take advantage of DirectX 11 and is now scheduled to be published in December 2009.

Disney Interactive Studios today announced Split/Second, an intense action racing game set within the world of a hyper-competitive reality television show. Competitors vie to be the first across the finish line in a made-for-TV city built for destruction, with the ultimate goal of becoming the season champion. Developed by Black Rock Studio, Split/Second is scheduled to be released in early 2010 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

Competitors in Split/Second don't just collide with other vehicles to knock them from the track - they can also trigger explosive events that drastically alter the dynamics of the race. Players must use strategy and pinpoint timing to derail opponents, tactically alter the track or create entirely new routes.

Codemasters showcased some of the star players from its 2009 portfolio at its San Francisco Gamers Day event, held last night, Thursday 19th February. Featured titles included DiRT 2, FUEL, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, Jumpgate Evolution, OverlordII, Overlord Dark Legend and Overlord Minions.

Set to deliver a thrilling off-roading experience with extreme sports attitude, new visuals released on Strategy Informer revealed that, in addition to Utah, Malaysia and London, DiRT 2's World Tour of off-road events will take racers to a massive, spectator-packed Los Angeles sports stadium for an exhilarating rally cross event: the "Stadium King Shootout".

Ian Webster, community manager for Codemasters, has revealed on the official forums that a new patch for the PC version of Race Driver: Grid will be released soon.

2008 was a fantastic year for gamers, and we will be looking forward to seeing what is in store for 2009, with the release of Resident Evil 5, Lord of the Rings: Conquest, Empire: Total War, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Ghostbusters, BioShock 2 and Overlord II among our personal favourites.

Richard has written up a list of the 12 games of Christmas for you, which is his opinion on what games you should be hoping for this year. Check that out here.