The future of portable gaming received a dual vote of confidence today from the world's biggest publisher. During a conference call with analysts, Electronic Arts announced its intention to support the DS and the PSP, Nintendo and Sony's respective next-generation game devices. Furthermore, the world's biggest publisher said it planned to keep its support for the Game Boy Advance at current levels through March 2005.

But whatever sighs of relief Nintendo executives breathed after the announcement were likely sucked away by a comment by EA's CEO. Responding to analysts, CEO Larry Probst said he fully expected "the PSP to be as big as the [Nintendo's] Game Boy at some point in the future."

Furthermore, while Probst and Chief Financial Officer Warren Jensen said nothing about EA's DS schedule, they did reveal their tentative PSP schedule. Without announcing specific titles, the pair said EA plans to release four to six PSP games during its 2005 fiscal year.

While this is lower than the previous eight to 12 titles previously announced by EA, consider this: EA's financial year ends on March 31, which means it will release all four to six games within the first three months of 2005. Sony plans to launch its PSP deck during the same period, which means that EA will have a solid PSP catalog from the moment gamers get their hands on the portable.