US: EA bringing Scrabble to DS and PSP

Scrabble has been enjoying great success on EA-owned casual games portal Pogo.com in recent times, with over 2.5 million players dabbling with the title since June. EA has also released versions of the game on mobile phone, iPod and iPhone. Ubisoft has previously published a Scrabble title on DS.

“The consumer response to Hasbro's brands arriving on digital platforms in such fresh, inventive ways has been incredibly positive,” Hasbro’s general manager of digital media and gaming Mark Blecher stated.

“Scrabble has taken the US and Canadian markets by storm in a very short period of time and we expect the momentum to remain at full throttle through the Nintendo DS and PSP handheld releases and beyond.

“The level of creativity and meticulous execution that EA has poured into the re-imagination of the Scrabble and Hasbro Family Game Night experiences have set the bar very high for the many other games under development, but we're confident that we've just scratched the surface of what digital fun feels, looks and plays like. It's going to be a very exciting year for casual game fans.”

Scrabble is due to be released on DS and PSP in March in North America and Canada.

To date EA has made no announcement regarding the release of the game in territories outside of North America. Whilst Hasbro remains the North American rights holder, Mattel currently owns the Scrabble licence in other global territories – a fact that has complicated recent legal proceedings surrounding Facebook title Scrabulous.