EA Sports BIG announced yesterday, the fourth iteration of the NBA Street series will be making its way to next-gen systems - Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 - early next year.

Scheduled for a spring 2007 release, the newest sequel to hit the courts currently sports the tentative tag of Vol. 4. but all media given by the company indicates the suffix and all logos presented are works in progress.

Street 4 is still in development by our northern neighbor, in EA Canada's Vancouver studio. The same studio is responsible for the company's other hoop titles NBA Live and NCAA March Madness.

Will Mozell, executive producer of the new Street project indicated the move to next-generation is a fitting setting to take the series even further. He also promises the new game will uphold Street's "easy to pick up and difficult to master game play."

Over its stay on current-generation hardware, it has spawned three multi-platinum selling console versions and is also available in portable form on the PSP.

In its move to next-gen, the big hook in part four will be a sort of "hometown journey" mode where players start out as a street rookie and aim to put their hometown court on the map. The game will continue the arcade-like 3-on-3 format of hoops and will merge legendary street courts with the hometown courts of NBA stars.

A preliminary trailer for the game details a rendered Carmelo Anthony of Denver Nugget fame recalling his street days prior to playing in the NBA. The players of the NBA will still be involved with the project, with the trailer indicating the roster available as of this moment is accurate as of May 8.

All images are stills from a teaser trailer released by EA.