REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (Reuters) — Electronic Arts, the video game publisher, gave confident forecasts Tuesday for growth over the next three years, fueled by new titles and revitalized franchises. The outlook sent its shares up more than 5 percent.

The company, which has blockbuster franchises like Madden NFL and Need for Speed, said it expected revenue to exceed $6 billion in fiscal 2011, which was better than the average forecast from two analysts of $4.9 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

It would also be a 53 percent increase from Wall Street’s forecast revenue of $3.9 billion for fiscal 2008.

“It’s a big number — it’s never been done in the game software industry before,” the chief executive, John Riccitiello, told analysts at a meeting at the company’s headquarters here.

“It’s a wide margin greater than I think anybody else is forecasting,” he said.

Mr. Riccitiello became chief executive last year and is credited with revitalizing franchises like Madden NFL, the Need for Speed series of racing games and the Battlefield combat games.

Electronic Arts, however, is being challenged by Activision’s impending merger with the games unit of the French media conglomerate Vivendi. Once that deal is completed, the two rivals will be roughly the same size in terms of revenue.

Spore is one of several new titles that the company is counting on to fuel growth. It said it would begin shipping the game, in which players nurture microbes into a galaxy-spanning civilization, worldwide on Sept. 7.

Electronic Arts had said in late January that Spore would be released before the holiday season, an apparent delay from earlier comments that pointed to a spring debut. Postponed releases of two other video game titles had caused the company to give a disappointing quarterly outlook on Jan. 30.

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