Industry analyst Doug Creutz says that EA has “largely missed this console generation.” Creutz further postulated that upcoming (and already here) EA titles Need for Speed: Shift, Dead Space: Extraction, and Dragon Age: Origins would all perform below retail sales expectations. He did not comment as to whether the presence of colons in game titles would negatively impact their sales. As both NFS and Extraction landed last month we’ll have to wait for those sales numbers to come out to see if he’s right.

Due to these low sales expectations, he does not expect any cute cheerleaders asking EA if they want to go to the prom. Quoth Creutz, “We continue to believe that EA has largely missed this console cycle, and despite recent speculation, we believe it is highly unlikely that EA will be an acquisition target due to a variety of factors.”

Seemingly, the only silver lining for EA right now can be found on Abbey Road - The Beatles Rock Band is expected to outsell Guitar Hero 5 by a healthy margin, with a US sales projection of 3.5 million units.