Need for Speed Most Wanted is a 2005 racing video game developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts. It is the ninth installment in the Need for Speed series. The game features street racing-oriented game play, with certain customization options from the Need for Speed: Underground series. The game is succeeded by Need for Speed: Carbon, which serves as a sequel to Most Wanted. Most Wanted has been released for Nintendo DS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Game Boy Advance and is the first Need for Speed game released for the seventh generation console, the Xbox 360, as one of the system's launch titles. Another version of Most Wanted, titled Need for Speed: Most Wanted 5-1-0 has been released for the PlayStation Portable. In May 2012, the PlayStation 2 version was released on the online virtual market, PlayStation Store, for the PlayStation 3, but was removed from the storefront later that year - due to an announcement on June 1, 2012, a reboot of the game, also called Need for Speed: Most Wanted,

was under development by the British developing team Criterion Games and was released on October 30, 2012. Need for Speed: Most Wanted received positive reviews and was a commercial success; it sold 16 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling title in the series. Most Wanted is like other Need for Speed games, where the player selects one car and races against a time limit or other racers to reach a destination. Police chases have once again been integrated into certain racing sessions, in which the police employ vehicles and tactics to stop the player's car and arrest the player, like Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2. As players take control of faster cars and increasingly rely on nitrous oxide speed boosts.