Before the year ends Electronic Arts will know what consoles will be out when, and they have a reason for believing that. EA's CEO Larry Probst recently stated this in an interview with Reuters:

"We will know when we begin to get first-generation development systems, because typically we get our hands on those about two years before launch," Probst said, speaking at the company's headquarters after its annual shareholder meeting. "So if they start showing up in the fall of this year, then we can pretty confidently predict it's 2005.

"If we don't start to get them until '04 then it's probably an '06 launch." he said. "So that's going to get sorted out in the next four to six months."