madden-nfl-09 posts

Two years ago, EA Sports decided to no longer make the Madden NFL pro football games for the PC. Now comes word that the NFL is finally coming back to the PC platform but EA Sports has nothing to do with it. Rather it's Quick Hit Football, the browser-based game that launched last September, that's bringing the NFL to PC sports players.

While there's not yet a start date for the launch of the NFL on Quick Hit Football, players will be able manage and coach their favorite NFL team when support begins. Kotaku reports that the NFL license does not yet include the rights to the actual players on NFL team. Still its a huge day for football fans for the PC that have been waiting a long time to have some kind of official NFL experience.

2008 was a great year for PC gamers but it might have been a better year if some of the best console games of last year had also been ported over to the PC. We know, we know...some console ports are better than others but still there's a lot of potential in having many of 2008's best games come to our side of the fence.

2009 will see console titles like Mirror's Edge, Saints Row 2 and Burnout Paradise come to the PC but what if other such game also made the jump. Big Download has our picks for console exclusives that should be considered for the PC such as Gears of War 2 and many others.

Click on the image above to continue reading 2008 console games that should be PC games.

It sounds like Peter Moore has been getting more and more flack for his positions on PC sport games. The head of Electronic Arts' sports division shocked many when he announced earlier this year they would not release a PC port of Madden NFL 09 (indeed EA will only release two PC sports games this year, FIFA Soccer 09 and NHL 09). In his latest blog posting on the EA Sports web site, Moore continues to defend the company's decision to scale back their PC releases.

Moore has been slammed by fans of the genre in previous posts and he states he's risking "once again opening the floodgates of people comparing me to the devil incarnate." However he feels that the PC platform has declined compared to the console for "authentic, fully-licensed, simulation sports games" thanks to current next -gen consoles having "high definition graphics and 5.1 sound capabilities." The growing use of downloadable PC games is another factor, according to Moore, and piracy is also an issue. Ultimately, Moore states EA needs to make money to fund further development of games, saying "We are not making games in garages or bedrooms any more."

Moore continues to state that EA Sports will not abandon the PC platform, but, "you sometimes have to hit the reset button." He hints that the company is thinking about "new, innovative, maybe even less-expensive ways to play all of our franchises on the PC." but at the moment "we are assessing all of the options open to us to shift the current paradigm for our games on this platform."

Electronic Arts may not care that it made PC football fans upset when it decided not to release a PC version of Madden NFL 09 this year but that apparently isn't stopping EA Sports from making a PC port of FIFA Soccer 09. The publisher announced today that all of the versions of the pro soccer game, due out this fall, will have some kind of unique feature.

So what will the PC port have? EA Sports says that version of the game will have "leading-edge visuals that deliver graphics that exploit the power of hi-spec gaming PCs, as requested by PC gamers." Okay. That sounds good. The PC port will also have "customizable mouse gameplay controls" and "customizable widgets are now integrated into the menu system." According to the game's producer Paul Hossack, "Gamers want a gameplay experience exclusively for PC and FIFA Soccer 09 on PC delivers this." Meanwhile PC NFL fans sit around their rigs staring at an empty screen . . .we just don't get it.

Peter Moore may have made the move from Microsoft's Xbox head to the head of the sports game division of Electronic Arts but right now many PC sports game fans wish he had stayed there. A few weeks ago Moore announced that for the first time in the franchise's history they would not publish a PC version of Madden NFL 09. He's taken a lot of flack for fans of the game and a new interview with our sister web site Game Daily has Moore on the defensive about that very decision.

The chat, which discusses the PC game cancellation near the end, has Moore admitting that his decision " . . . pissed off a lot of people," and added that in his view sports games should be played as a " . . . ten-foot lean back" experience. That basically means Moore feels that playing sports games on a console with a big screen and laid out on the couch is better than playing such games on a chair with a smaller monitor closer to the eyes. Moore also cites piracy as an issue for PC games. The bottom line is strictly on the business side. Moore claims, "Last year, for every 30 copies (of Madden 08) on PS2, we'd sell one PC." It's hard to argue with those kind of figures but Moore claims that they are looking to perhaps come back to the PC space with ". . . a very different idea and approach next year." Stay tuned.