Few sports video games are truly timeless. Even the best—MVP Baseball 2005, NFL 2K5—show their age and shortcomings immediately, and more than their contemporaries in other genres. It's the special burden of sports titles, tasked with reflecting both the state of the art and the state of reality inside a one-year…

There was so little mention of the Wii U by Electronic Arts, or any sports publisher at E3, I felt compelled to double-check with Madden's boss that they still were building a version for it.

Both are made by EA Sports. Both are American football titles. Both are made under exclusive license, and both come out every year.

Canadian football—with 12 men to a side, longer and wider fields, and the single point for touchbacks—is feasible within technology available to Madden NFL's developers. Back in April, I was told that some developers once built a working CFL game internally, with uniforms and helmets skinned using NCAA Football's…

Without fail, every time I bring up this job and its subject, usually with folks outside the business, the topical jokes start rolling. Whatever the latest controversy or embarrassment is in sports, people ask if that's going to be simulated in the next edition of Madden, Tiger Woods or NBA 2K.

In the two and a half months since he traded Canada's weather for Florida's, and titles like FIFA for Madden, Cam Weber has read that he delayed Madden's release for three weeks because of the NFL lockout; that he's adding some kind of social network to the game, like Need for Speed's Autolog; and that he is at the…