Former Electronic Arts President and COO John Riccitello is returning to the publishing behemoth. On April 2, Riccitello will become the new chief executive officer, while current EA CEO Larry Probst will stay on as executive chairman of the board of directors.

Probst held the position of Big Kahuna since 1991. During his time, the company has steadily solidified its position as supreme being in the world of game publishing, made seven more Madden iterations, saw firsthand the awe-inspiring financial powerhouse that is Will Wright's The Sims (and its subsequent sequels / expansion packs) and who at one point abstained from letting EA publish M-rated titles. (The latter position did not last: EA's first M-rated title was Quake III for the PlayStation 2 in 2000.)

Riccitello left EA in 2004 to co-found Elevation Partners with, among others, U2 singer Bono. Elevation Partners created a "super developer" through the purchase and merger of Pandemic and BioWare in late 2005.

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Newsweek's N'Gai Croal has posted two parts of his three-part interview with Larry Probst, CEO of EA. (Part three is due Friday.) Among a few other topics, Probst discusses publishing the same game on multiple platform, and how that strategy fits with -- or doesn't match -- the Wii and PSP.

Probst says that EA doesn't plan any original titles for the PSP; the company will continue making portable versions of its established franchises for that hand-held. The Wii should get 12 or 13 EA games next year, with two or three of them being original Wii titles. (Probst mentions that a Wii-specific version of The Sims fits that original category.)

While any EA support for Nintendo's console is good for gamers, two or three Wii-specific titles seems like a low target for the world's biggest publisher. Madden on the Wii takes a legitimate shot at using motion controls with an old franchise; we hope that EA can pull this off for all of its established titles. But wouldn't the Wii market be best served by shipping five or six original games in the year and skipping the ports? Or is that approach at the expense of EA's business model?

Read:
Loot: The Larry Probst Interview: Part I
Loot: The Larry Probst Interview: Part II