Another blow for PC gaming: EA drops PC version of Madden ‘09
Are you glad they have exclusive rights to the NFL properties now?
Straight from Ars Technica: “The announcement of Madden 2009 noted every major platform—both console and handheld—except for the PC, which EA has since confirmed was a conscious omission. This is the first Madden title not to hit the PC alongside current consoles since Madden NFL ‘96 in 1995.
EA’s Peter Moore commented about the lack of a PC version on his official EA blog. “We knew that our decision to not develop this year’s Madden for the PC would be an unpopular decision in some circles,” Moore admitted. “But I’ll reiterate what I said a couple of weeks ago in this space… the PC presents some very serious business challenges to us in the sports category, particularly because so many of you all are playing your favorite sports games on the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii. We are committed to shipping a limited number of our games on the PC this year, but we’ve also had to cut a few of our games from the platform.”"
GREAT NEWS THERE!!! The Madden-ING franchise is way overrated to begin with. I’ve hated every version since the 2004 version. They just got too complicated for my tastes.
Hopefully, 2K Sports can take advantage of this lapse by EA. It would be great if they were able to bring back some of the features from the old Front Page Sports game.
The top feature they should bring back is the “Design Your Own Play”. It was pretty easy to do and the computer told you if a play had an illegal formation before you even left the design screen.
Another feature I’d bring back is the injury system from the FPS game. Just because a guy is injured, doesn’t mean the guy can’t still play. He just won’t be 100%
The last feature I’d bring back would be the “Plays Beyond His Stats Player”. Most seasons I played, there was one guy on my team who just kicked ass during the game. But yet when you looked at his player stats, he really shouldn’t have been that good.
There are two new features I think 2K Sports could bring in based off the All-Pro Football formula that would be good:
First, Era play. Let the player choose which year to start in and let them play a career from there. Say starting from 1982, how different would the league be if say Cincinnati had picked Dan Marino rather then Miami? What if San Fran had some how been able to finagle a trade up and select Emmitt Smith?
The other feature would be to throw all the players in a draft pool and start a career league from there. Have the option of randomizing the age of the players or start them all out as rookies. Shrink the league down to 16 teams and perhaps draft a prime Joe Montana with 8 years experience and mix him in with a rookie Barry Sanders. Or better still, start the career league up, and sprinkle in the All-Star players through out the year’s drafts. Introduce Barry Sanders in league year 1 and then Jerry Rice in year 3.
Being able to really customize things would be a key point. Set it up where the player can litterally put any color scheme and designs together that they want. (Then if somebody “mods” the game to the actual NFL colors and designs, 2K can’t be sued. heh)
Or heck, set up the system where you can play at whatever level you want: High School, College, or Pro. Watch your created running back start out as a freshman in high school and watch his career through the Pros where he plays with Joe and Barry.
I doubt that 2K could out sell the Madden juggernaut, but they could at least corner the PC market and use that as a launching pad to get back into being a serious contender against EA.
Warren
April 22, 2008 at 9:27 am