No Madden 09 for PC Sports Fans

Electronic Arts seems to favor the console over the PC more and more when it comes to everyone's favorite EA games, the sports ones. While rumors have been flying for a while that American football wouldn't get a PC outing this year, Electronic Arts confirmed the said rumor.

Peter Moore, who is in charge of EA's sports division, has posted on his blog about the announcement that Madden would not have a PC edition this year.

He said that: "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."

And so it begins. Madden this year, FIFA the next and soon all the sports action will be on the console and none on the PC. It might not be the smartest decision that EA has made lately, given the fact that there are more PC gamers out there than there are console gamers. Maybe EA should try and infuse its sports games with more innovation and more diverse gameplay so that PC gamers can enjoy them rather than continue to oversimplify the games and move them exclusively to consoles.

Moore also talked about the details regarding the Madden NFL 09 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition. The premium-priced bundle for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will include Madden NFL 09, assorted bonus video content and the coaching game NFL Head Coach 09. The package will cost 89.99 dollars and is expected to go on sale in North America alongside the stand-alone versions of Madden NFL 09 on the just-announced release date of August 12. Apparently, coaching for the Wii is out of the question.

NFL Head Coach 09 trades in the helmet for the headset by letting gamers take year-round strategic control of an NFL team. In addition to game-day duties such as play calling, coaches will have to scout opponents, design playbooks, and manage their teams' drafts. The Indianapolis Colts' Tony Dungy will be replacing Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher on the cover of the game.