Found by Kotaku contributor Alice on her way back from the airport. Signs of the times, signs of the times, folks. All that's missing is a Viagra ad. Brian Ashcraft

Madden Tourney [Wonderland]

Electronic Arts took the time during the lull between Christmas and New Year's to flex their Madden sales numbers a bit.

According to the company, Madden NFL 07 sold more than five million copies via the ten versions of the game that hit this year. The company goes on to predict that Madden 07 will be the top selling game of 2006.

Typically, this is the point in the post I'd go off on EA for getting stuck in a rut with sequel after sequel and failing to deliver any real innovation to a wilting franchise, but the thing is Madden for the Wii showed the EA still has some pretty sizable tricks up their sleeves.

Hit the jump if you'd like to wallow in a page full of marketing speak and self back-patting. Brian Crecente

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - December 26, 2006 - Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) announced that Madden NFL 07, the EA SPORTS best-selling football franchise with the exclusive videogame license of the NFL and PLAYERS INC, has sold more than five million copies to consumers on a total of ten game platforms. EA believes, based on its own internal data as well as industry sources, that across all game platforms, Madden NFL 07 will finish as North America's most popular game of 2006.

Since its launch in August, Madden NFL 07 has had a record-breaking season, with first week retail sales of more than two million copies.

In November, Madden NFL 07 launched on the PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system and the Nintendo Wii . Innovative use of the Wii Remote created a whole new experience and made Madden NFL 07 one of the most innovative and popular games on the Wii. Madden NFL 07 is also one of the top titles on the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system. In the first week on that system, players unlocked more than 600,000 achievements and recorded more than two million hours of online game play on Xbox Live .

For 2006, through November, Madden NFL 07 retail sales are currently ranked in the top ten on six platforms and is the top-selling game on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox *. It is also one of the top selling games for Xbox 360, PLAYSTATION 3 and Wii*.

"Madden NFL 07 is the must-have game for players to realize the full power of the new systems like the Wii, PLAYSTATION3 and Xbox 360," said Todd Sitrin, VP of Marketing for the EA SPORTS brand. "EA's Tiburon Studio has once again set the bar for innovation and consumers have responded. This has been an amazing holiday season for Madden NFL 07."

Madden NFL Football has become a cultural phenomenon with the launch day coined Maddenoliday, becoming a highly anticipated event and holiday for many avid fans. Not only has the franchise become a cultural phenomenon, but Madden NFL 07 has also become the must-have game for many athletes, including the NFL players. The 12th Annual EA SPORTS Madden Bowl will be hosted in Miami, Florida on February 1, 2007 and will showcase NFL players battling it out to earn the highly coveted title of Madden Bowl champion.

Adding to the Madden Phenomenon is the Madden Challenge and Madden Nation, for the most loyal of the Madden fans. The 2006 EA SPORTS Madden Challenge, the fifth annual and only official EA Madden tournament, will crown the best player of Madden NFL 07 and award a check for $100,000 on February 8 in Hawaii. Winners will come from 31 regional competitions. And for the second year, ESPN and EA have teamed up for Madden Nation, a reality show centered around Madden NFL 07. The eight-episode series pits the nation's top 13 Madden NFL 07 gamers along with real-life NFL player sponsors against each other in elimination-style tournaments on a 12-city bus tour. The Madden Nation winner will also win a $100,000 prize.

In its 17th year and with more than two billion in retail sales life to date, Madden NFL Football continues to stand out as the most popular football videogame franchise of all time with a combination of innovative new features and the most authentic football gameplay. Developed in Orlando, FL by EA Tiburon, Madden NFL 07 is available PLAYSTATION 3, Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 , the PlayStation 2, the Xbox video game system from Microsoft, Nintendo GameCube , Nintendo DS , PC, PSP (PlayStation Portable) handheld entertainment system and Game Boy Advance. Madden NFL 07 is rated "E" (Everyone) by the ESRB.

Every Madden cover-boy has met with horrible end, a disastrous calamity. The cover, they say, those who know, that the cover is cursed! GIANT Mag's Scott Stein sat down with current Madden poster player Shaun Alexander and asked him how he beats the curse. "I pretty much have to play every game, don't I?" said Alexander. "Plus I open up about ten or eleven umbrellas inside the house every day, and it kind of balances everything out." We've seen Alexander's on field skills, but what about his gaming abilities? Stein writes:

And better than Madden's own crowds came the cheering section that was EA's entire PR team, chanting Shaun and mocking my inability to stop him. Alas, this peanut gallery continued throughout the game.

Thus began a long, long four quarters where the following events kept occurring: a) Shaun running for long touchdowns, wearing down my increasingly pathetic defense. b) Me scrambling and throwing shockingly long touchdowns to Laveranues Coles, beating all coverage. Repeat, about five times.

So what was that about a Madden curse? We'll find out in less than a month when the NFL kicks off.

More Here [GIANT Mag]

Not everyone lives in a bustling metropolis that spawns from ocean to mountain, covering all with a thick layer of concrete. Some live in tiny rustic villages or idyllic towns. Others live in New Jersey. So what's the gaming scene like in Main Street, USA? An anonymous sales clerk writes:

I work at a Wal-Mart in a very small town. As a result, around here, all the big launch dates...aren't. Today's release of Madden 07 was no different. I ended up with the incredibly fun job of pricing all of the spare copies of Madden 07—placing a small, green sticker with EA's ridiculous prices on each copy. At first, I tried putting the stickers in various places on the box - covering up John Madden's extra chins, making Shaun Alexander into a ninja, things like that. This quickly grew old, however, so I had to come up with a new tactic. It was then that I realized that one of the stickers could cover up two of the letters in 'Madden'. Once I realized this, I quickly set out converting the dozens of copies of Madden 07 into copies of MADD ( Mothers Against Drunk Driving) 07.

And yes, he did this for every single one. Brian Ashcraft

As we posted earlier, football greats Jerry Rice, Marshall Faulk and Warren Moon showed up in Madden, Mississippi to hand out free 360 consoles and copies of Madden 07 to the town's 74 residents. The Gamerscore Blog has posted a fistful of event pics, including the one above that shows the local football team tossing "Madden NFL 07 on Xbox 360" footballs, caps and t-shirts into the crowd. Good thing they decided against throwing 360 consoles. Hit the jump for more images of the day's festivities. Brian Ashcraft

Eds. Note: Allow me a quick aside. Am I the only one sightly surprised that Marshal Faulk showed up at a Madden event? After he was on the cover back in 2002, he injured his ankle, missing his shot at an eight 1,000 yard season.

It's something you can count on. Every year, there is a new Madden. Electronic Arts rolls out its tweaked version and makes a bucket full of cash on the Madden NFL games. GIANT Magazine's Scott Stein thinks an overhaul is in order and lists ten things that are lacking in Madden:

You know, the technology exists to take that about-to-be-obsolete copy of Madden '06 and add this year's rosters changes and schedules, all for a modest fee. It's called Xbox Live Marketplace, and it's a shame EA doesn't allow people to make their old games new again. I guess they're afraid everyone won't pay another $50 for this year's iteration. Well, they would...if the game were significantly improved every year

What about the peanut gallery, what changes would you like to see? Me, I'm not really a big fan, but I'm hoping EA will figure out a clever way to work in John Madden's Maddencruiser into game play. A coast-to-coast gumball rally or something. Brian Ashcraft

More Here [GIANT Mag]

At first glance, I mistook these pics for shots of something John Madden was having delivered to his warehouse. Were these thousands upon thousands of aerosol cans of itch relieving Tinactin? Tons and tons of savory Lunchables for John to snack upon while travelling on the Madden Bus? The shipment of crisp twenty dollar bills to pay off the exclusive NFL license?

Sadly, its just a bunch of copies of Madden NFL 07. It's an impressive display and the folks at Screw Attack have exclusive pics of the shipment. Before you can grunt out a "How is this news?", just check out the full pics for the impressive display of the cash cow that is EA's footballer. You will be in awe of the massive shipping capabilities!! Michael McWhertor

Madden '07- Ready To Ship!

Never-ending sports franchise Madden hits stores on August 22 to sate America's insatiable thirst for all things football. This time around EA, king of multi-SKUs, is releasing a Hall of Fame edition for both the Playstation 2 and the Xbox 360.

The PS2 edition will include:

PlayStation 3 Unveiled—G4TV provides a sneak peek at the making of Madden NFL 07 for PlayStation 3 with exclusive gameplay footage, content previews, and more.
Hall of Famer: John Madden—A career retrospective highlighting Coach Madden's days as Oakland Raiders head coach and award-winning calls from the broadcast booth.
Inside Madden Studios—ESPN's Trey Wingo delivers game production insights and exclusive interviews with the team behind the game.
Exclusive Music Interviews—The hottest acts featured in Madden NFL 07 reveal the inspiration behind their music.

While the 360 version will come packed with:

Hall of Famer: John Madden—A career retrospective highlighting Coach Madden's days as Oakland Raiders head coach and award-winning calls from the broadcast booth.
Madden Nation, Season One—Heroes are born and dreams are shattered in the eight-part mini-series. Revisit the complete first season of the original ESPN program.
Inside Madden Studios—ESPN's Trey Wingo delivers game production insights and exclusive interviews with the team behind the game.
Exclusive Music Interviews—The hottest acts featured in Madden NFL 07 reveal the inspiration behind their music.

The PS2 will sell for about $60 while the 360 version will sell for about $70.

Madden is on its seventeenth iteration... seventeenth. Isn't that insane? Is it just me or does it feel like EA and Madden have pretty much squeezed every bit of technical and gameplay nuance possible out of this concept? I wonder if gameplay mechanics can suffer from the Uncanny Valley? Maybe Electronic Arts should stop churning out entirely new versions of the game and turn the franchise into something built around episodic content or packs. Brian Crecente