EA intends to make bank on its recently announced Hasbro deal, and has announced that a Hasbro Family Game Night Channel would be coming to Xbox Live in Spring, adding Scrabble, Boggle, Battleship, Yahtzee, Connect Four, Sorry!, and Sorry! Sliders to the arcade. In their press release, Chip Lange, General Manager of EA Hasbro, had the following to say about the upcoming content:

"We believe our Hasbro Family Game Night channel on Xbox LIVE Arcade will be one of the most dynamic and fun collections available on the platform We've been given the unique opportunity to create an exclusive EA Hasbro branded destination within the Xbox LIVE Arcade so players can easily find and play our lineup of family-friendly digital board games. Just as families have game closets in their home, they will also be able to stock a digital game closet serving up hours of interactive play for kids and adults alike."

Can't really disagree with that. In terms of content for the younger crowd, the Xbox 360 seems to be leaps and bounds ahead of the PlayStation 3, which is mysteriously bereft of family titles. I'm not sure why, but EA has apparently been ignoring Sony's system in this deal. We'll be sure to ask them why this is the case the next time we sit down with EA's PR for a friendly game of Scrabble, which brings us to the next announcement:

SCRABBLE on the Nintendo DS and PSP will offer something for every crossword puzzle fan with three modes of play including: Classic, which offers traditional play; Speed, where players race the clock; and, the new fast paced SCRABBLESLAM card game, where players try to be the first to discard all their SLAM cards by making four letter words. SLAM will be available for the first time digitally on the handheld versions of SCRABBLE. With six difficulty levels, SCRABBLE will serve up a Training mode with six training exercises that enable new or rusty players to polish their skills before their first big showdown. SCRABBLE comes loaded with extras such as SCRABBLE Word Finder and Wi-Fi multiplayer capability (both single and multi-cart play). Debuting in March 2009, the Nintendo DS and PSP games are expected to be rated "E" for Everyone and carry an MSRP of $29.99.

The price point is a little high for Scrabble, but I'm definitely down for a DS or PSP version of the original word porn. I've spent the past few nights shirking all responsibilities for hours of BookWorm, so I'm sure that EA's Scrabble port will definitely find me wasting time in the near future. EA will be showcasing these titles and more at this week's Consumer Electronics Show, so hopefully we will know more in the coming days about these upcoming board games gone digital.

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