Interesting Madden RUMOR

bdoughty · Post by **bdoughty** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 6:26 am

http://www.technologylive.com/default.a ... cle&id=208

Just a rumor but brings up an interesting topic for discussion.

Would the name change hurt EA? Would it help Sega/ESPN? Who would EA replace Madden with if this transpired?

XXXIV · Post by **XXXIV** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 11:19 am

It will confuse the casual gamer. Probably giving Sega a few more sales but nothing that will make a dent.

wco81 · Post by **wco81** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 12:42 pm

I remember waiting in line with about 100 other people the Monday night before Madden 2004 was released. I'm usually not someone who camps out or waits in line but Gamestop claimed it would be there in 30 minutes so I drove down there and ended up waiting a couple of hours for it.

Anyways, most of the guys were high school or college guys, many of them on some school team. It was obvious from the way they were talking that they'd grown up on Madden, probably going back to the Genesis days.

While waiting, they were looking at magazines and a Prima guide. They didn't seem to be interested in any other game (there were a couple of kiosks with Soul Calibur 2 on them and most weren't interested).

They mocked the Madden commentary in the game, talking about how stupid or obvious it was.

I don't think they were so much into the Madden name as much as the game they grew up with.

Maybe their attitude is typical of the people who have bought Madden every year or maybe they're not. We shall see, if these rumors turn out to be true. Hard to imagine Sega outbidding EA for that endorsement. Maybe EA figures it no longer needs the endorsement.

Badgun · Post by **Badgun** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 1:00 pm

I was actually more excited about Al Michaels than I have been about Madden. Madden was great back in the day, but I personally think that Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are as good as anyone right now.

Someone, maybe EA, should approach FOX about getting their license in a football game and maybe going away from Madden all together. After all, EA's Madden really has no network affiliate and I think that's becoming more and more important...to have recognizable brands in a sports game.

I also think it's time for ESPN to go away from those two knuckleheads that do their game and get Mike Patrick and Theisman in there. I don't like Theisman, but having him and Patrick in the game would up the immersion factor immensely.

There was a time that I think losing Madden would have hurt EA, but now I don't think it would matter. I mean, we've had Triple Play baseball since the PS1 days and switching it over to MVP certainly didn't hurt sales any.

Zeppo · Post by **Zeppo** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 6:23 pm

Badgun wrote: I don't like Theisman, . . .

Gee, I wonder why that would be?

Honestly, though, I think Aikman is excellent in the booth (he should thank Arrington for pushing him in there so forcefully; that guy was pushing his luck with the head injuries, it was getting scary). And with Collinsworth in there, he's even better, but I'm no fan of the young Buck. Well, I like him better with football than baseball, but still . . . .

Since Madden's move to ABC, it's more logical to have Madden involved in the ESPN product, now that he works for the same company. And Sega football's announcers are like a bad joke at this point. They should have spent the money and gone with the Sunday Night crew as quick as they could upon landing the ESPN license. Actors pretending to be sports announcers was fine in the days of the DC, before the marketing in video games became sophisticated. It would seem a no-brainer for Sega to pony up and actually spend some money to try to grab what is possibly the most successful branding in video game history, one so successful it is, much like Kleenex or Brillo, or even Nintendo still today, uniquely synonymous with the product it is attatched to.

But this could be good for EA's football game in the end. Many recent games replicating other sports have pushed the envelope in terms of commentary, so one could hope that the break for EA from Madden himself would give them a much needed clean slate to really look at the commentary mechanism, and maybe the overall sound in the game. I remember at least one version of Madden on Genesis or PSX had a full-fledged Fox Sports treatment, complete with James Brown and so on. Now their stuff is so much worse than the (I assume) lower-budgeted NCAA game, it's embarrassing. It's obvious Madden (or perhaps EA's football game in a couple of years) has been in need of a major overhaul in terms of presentation, so why not start fresh, rebrand it with a more currently appropriate 'top team' of network broadcasters, and take advantage of the crowd-noise work in games like MVP and FIFA.

Post by **ScoopBrady** » Mon Apr 12, 2004 5:09 am

That would be interesting to see how Sega would use the Madden name for their title. Would they call their game Madden hoping to get people to buy it thinking it was EA's game? Hmmmm.

And this just made me laugh a little coming from Technology Live.

"I soon received some conformation on the rumor from inside sources at Sony, stating that John Madden’s contract with EA Sports ends this year and he maybe signing a contact with the ESPN Network."

If only we had the technology to check for grammatical errors.