A 17 Person Criteria

With most of their existing staff having been relocated to Ghost Games (how serendipitous would it be if NFS: Rivals became vaporware?) Criterion are now only 17 people! In a Twitter exchange with (what I presume to be) a fan, Creative Director Alex Ward replied...
@oldmario Nope. Criterion is just 17 people these days...
— Alex Ward (@AlexanderJWard) September 13, 2013
@mattyd128 @awiag @oldmario We still exist. We chose not to continue making NFS games.
— Alex Ward (@AlexanderJWard) September 13, 2013
Those 17 people are pretty busy though, working on some secret "non-racing" project that they've been working on for some time now. The ambiguity around the "chose not to continue making NFS games" line should also be noted, however it's also worth remembering that Criterion are still very much under the EA banner and it's highly likely that their secret "non-racing game" game will be published by the Arts that are Electronic.
Speculation time: I really, really, REALLLLLLY hope they're working on a sequel to Black.