EA Asks if Battlefield Should be Annualised

"Battlefield takes us about two years to develop."

EA has explained it has no plans to annualise Battlefield as it doesn't have the resources to make sure there isn't a dip in quality.
That's according to CFO Blake Jorgensen, who made the comments when asked by an analyst at a UBS conference (via Seeking Alpha).

"The challenges are you've got to most likely do it out of two studios because it's hard," he responded in reference to rival publisher Activision Blizzard splitting Call of Duty development between Infinity Ward and Treyarch. "It's a two-year project."

You also want to be really careful that you don't destroy the franchise along the way.

"Battlefield takes us about two years to develop and so you want to make sure that you're sharing talent across studios, so you keep [the] core talent of the product and the experience for the consumer there. You also want to be really careful that you don't destroy the franchise along the way. You got to make it exciting and different, but at the same time you want to make sure you maintain a great franchise.
"And Battlefield is a product that doesn't just sell once, it sells for 24-months associated with not just Battlefield, but all the additional Battlefield Premium activities that the consumer wants. So you've got to be careful that you don't destroy some of that tail that is on the Battlefield product."

Seeing as Swedish-based Battlefield creator DICE is likely to be tied up working on Mirror's Edge 2 now that Battlefield 4 is released, with its new LA studio tackling the scary task of creating Star Wars: Battlefront, it seems unlikely the series could be annualised without the help of another developer.
Despite this, it seems like Battlefield 5 is pretty much a certainty - the studio has already spoken about what it wants to see from the game.