EA’s senior VP of Europe, Jens Uwe Intat, has said that the publisher plans to release less games in 2010, but will concentrate more on their quality.

Speaking in an interview with UK trade publication MCV about the firm’s outlook for 2010, Inat explained, “Our aim is to do less games and do them better. I think in the past maybe people have rushed into too many projects at the same time and have probably been spoiled by the overall industry growth, because it meant that if you didn’t have proper portfolio management, the punishment wasn’t particularly harsh.

“But in a more mature market (and I don’t just mean older, I mean more professional), portfolio management becomes more important and it’s something we’re working on. And that’s across the whole organisation, not just development. You also have to focus your publishing resources – both people and money. You can achieve much more if you leverage fewer, bigger franchises.”

Inat also believes the downturn in boxed product won’t be as bad as first thought: “The packaged goods market might decrease a little this year, but after the price reductions, particularly on Xbox and PlayStation, I think more people may have bought hardware at Christmas than we expected, so perhaps we will see a better market than we thought. It might remain stable, or there might be only a very slight decrease, less than last year.”

EA lowered its fiscal year 2010 outlook earlier this week, saying the revised expectations are “primarily the result of weakness for EA and the overall packaged goods sector in Europe in December, and a product mix shift to lower margin distribution products in the December quarter, primarily in North America.”