Need For Speed Nitro Teams Up With Tokidoki

August 13, 2009

NEED FOR SPEED NITRO TEAMS UP
WITH TOKIDOKI, UPPER PLAYGROUND AND I AM 8-BIT TO DELIVER HIGH OCTANE STYLE THIS
NOVEMBER

This Holiday’s Most Exhilarating
Nintendo Racer Collaborates with Cutting Edge Lifestyle Brands to Design
Exclusive In-Game Cars

EA Montreal, an Electronic Arts Inc.
studio, announced today that it is collaborating with lifestyle brands tokidoki,
Upper Playground and i am 8-bit to create exclusive in-game car designs and
artwork for Need for Speed™ NITRO on the Wii™. Each brand has created custom
skins for a wide variety of vehicles including the Lamborghini Gallardo, Dodge
Challenger, Dodge Charger R/T, Volkswagen Type 2 and Subaru Impreza WRX. They
have also provided over 140 stylistic brushes that players can use to paint and
personalize their ride. The cars in Need for Speed NITRO have style, personality
and edge unlike any racing game.

The tokidoki brand is one of today’s
most popular lines of apparel, accessories, toys, skateboard decks and other
merchandise. The brand is characterized by a colorful, high-energy artistic
style, while the word tokidoki means “sometimes” in Japanese. The name
represents the company’s world view around identity and destiny. tokidoki was
founded by Simone Legno and his partners and started as a personal web site
before it evolved into an internationally celebrated brand.

Upper Playground is a cutting-edge,
San Francisco based, creative lifestyle brand that brings graffiti culture to
all types of apparel such as t-shirts, hats and hoodies as well as housewares
and wall art. The Upper Playground contemporary art style has defined it as one
of today’s hottest brands among musical tastemakers and Hollywood trendsetters.

i am 8-bit is an artistic collective
that brings together over 100 artists reinterpreting their favorite old-school
video game characters in a variety of media, including paintings, plush,
sculpture, and even interactive pieces. The art is showcased at an annual
exhibition held in Los Angeles, California every year since 2005.

“tokidoki, Upper Playground and i am
8-bit create art with distinct and cutting edge personalities,” said Gil Rimmer,
Art Director, EA Montreal. “With Need for Speed NITRO, we wanted to give players
a variety of ways to customize their vehicles, introducing vivid and fresh urban
art styles that have never been seen in racing games before.”

Developed specifically for the Wii
and Nintendo DS™, Need for Speed NITRO delivers the fun and exhilaration of
high-speed racing with blazing visuals and deep gameplay. Need for Speed NITRO
features a deep and intuitive visual customization system that lets gamers trick
out their car’s appearance as well as design a unique art style to attach to
their ride. Ultimate bragging rights are at stake as the player’s personalized
art style overtakes the world when they edge out their competitors for first
place, vibrantly painting their story of racing dominance.

Shipping on November 17, 2009, Need
for Speed NITRO recently received IGN’s “Best Racing Game” award for the Wii and
Nintendo DS. Need for Speed NITRO is developed by EA Montreal and is not yet
rated by the ESRB and PEGI.