Q&A: EA VP Keith Munro explains 15-year-old racing series' long and winding road to sales mega-milestone; latest installment posts decent Sept. showing in US; Need for Speed World Online due Q4 2010.

In 1994, Electronic Arts released an all-new racer, The Need for Speed, for the
3DO console. Though that platform is long gone, the Need for Speed series went on to become one of the most popular racing series of all time, with 15 different games on 14 platforms.

Need for Speed: Shift rebooted the series this year.

Today, EA announced that the Need for Speed franchise has sold more than 100 million units worldwide during its 15-year career--the only racing series ever to do so. (The only other EA title to hit the mark is the Sims series.) To put that in perspective, EA helpfully pointed out that the figure equals one third the total US population and is triple that of Canada's inhabitants. The sum generated by the sales---$2.7 billion--also matches or exceeds the gross national product of many smaller