Interesting history of Madden series

[NoahsMyBro]

http://min.scout.com/2/1076489.html

[TonyTheTiger]

That was a good read. Nice to see John Madden stick up for the authenticity that became a series staple.

[Steve W]

In 1990, Sega Genesis (an operating system more people are familiar with) became the cartridge of choice and resulted in Madden’s expansion and domination of the market. An argument between EA Sports and Sega would eventually lead to a parting of the ways and, without the Madden game to sell, killing Sega out of the sports video business, being replaced by PlayStation and Xbox as the operating systems of choice.

Well, this guy has some of his facts wrong. EA and Sega always got along well, and kept making games for the Genesis and Saturn. And calling game consoles 'operating systems' makes him sound like an idiot. At least 'platform' would have been closer to what he was getting at.

[Greg2600]

EA refused to support the SEGA Dreamcast, after the Saturn flopped. The SEGA Sports Games I think were a fine replacement, but you know a lot of people didn't know any better and just flat assumed the Dreamcast was not worth it because there were no EA games. Of course, it didn't help that at launch SEGA shipped massive numbers of improperly burned (aka blank) CD's of their games to stores.

PS: Common knowledge that Madden insisted on realism, which wasn't possible until the close of the 1980's.

[Bojay1997]

EA refused to support the SEGA Dreamcast, after the Saturn flopped. The SEGA Sports Games I think were a fine replacement, but you know a lot of people didn't know any better and just flat assumed the Dreamcast was not worth it because there were no EA games. Of course, it didn't help that at launch SEGA shipped massive numbers of improperly burned (aka blank) CD's of their games to stores.

PS: Common knowledge that Madden insisted on realism, which wasn't possible until the close of the 1980's.

Where are you getting this info about "massive" numbers of blank CDs? There were only a small number of defective GDRs shipped at the time of launch and Sega quickly replaced them through retailers or directly.

[Greg2600]

Where are you getting this info about "massive" numbers of blank CDs? There were only a small number of defective GDRs shipped at the time of launch and Sega quickly replaced them through retailers or directly.
From people who worked in a major retailer who were bombarded with returns of blank discs, many of whom also returned the systems along with the discs.

[Bojay1997]

From people who worked in a major retailer who were bombarded with returns of blank discs, many of whom also returned the systems along with the discs.

I'm afraid your information is not correct or at least somewhat exaggerated. The defect rate was actually very low for both the system and the launch titles. While there were undoubtedly returns, it certainly didn't have much impact on overall sales.

[shinobimusashi]

This dude missed the Dreamcast altogether. EA couldn't use Randy Moss for the cover of Madden 2000, because he was already endorsing Sega's NFL 2K.

Nothing really new from this article. He just rambles on about the cover curse, and finds reasons to declare past cover athletes "Cursed".

I did not know that Joe Kapp was offered the endorsement deal before Madden was. Kapp was a tough as nails Quarterback who only really had one real good NFL season(69). I did enjoy the Americas Game: Missing Rings documentary on the 69 Vikings. Minnesota would have won a Super Bowl had they not traded him away before the 1970 season in my opinion. He got destroyed playing for the Patriots in 70, I just recently watched an NFL Films Documentary on the 1970 NFL Season. They had a whole segment on how he was beat up throughout that season. He retired after that year.



I found this little Madden Fansite much more interesting(Check out the "Tournament of Champions"): http://themaddenreport.weebly.com/

[Rob2600]

I'm afraid your information is not correct or at least somewhat exaggerated. The defect rate was actually very low for both the system and the launch titles. While there were undoubtedly returns, it certainly didn't have much impact on overall sales.

I worked at EB in NJ from 1998 to 2002. The day after the Dreamcast launched, we already had more than 50 copies of Dreamcast games that customers returned, sitting in our back room because the games wouldn't boot up. We even tested those copies out ourselves and sure enough, the games wouldn't boot (the Dreamcast would just sit at the built-in options screen, as if the console were turned on without a disc.)

Maybe our store was really unlucky and received an unusually high percentage of defective Dreamcast discs. Who knows? But that was my launch experience. Within a couple of weeks, Sega fixed the problem and things were normal. And game sales numbers weren't affected because most customers wanted exchanges for working copies of the same titles.

[Zing]

There is a much better Madden article out there. I'll see if I can track it down again.

I believe this is it:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=100805/madden

[boatofcar]

Atari? Really?

This guy knows nothing about video games, or at least the state of video games in 1982.

[slapdash]

No mention that it was allegedly CBS's "Maddenness" game that Madden balked at for having less than 11 players on a side either.