A lot of EA's recent success has been tied to the success of Sony consoles. The more PS1's and PS2's there were, the more people could buy Madden and FIFA.
These days, though, things aren't so rosy. The PS2 is in its last days. The PSP sells well as a handheld, but nobody is buying any games for it. And the PS3 has been struggling to catch the 360, let alone catch the Wii and regain the brand's dominant position in the home console market.
EA, then, must be feeling the pinch. So they've sent a Get Well message to Sony, as EA's Glen Schofield tells GI.biz:
I'm really not sure what's going on with Sony. They've been such a great, great partner and PlayStation 2 being such a great machine that, God, I hope they get out of this and they figure it out and they're around for a long time.
You can tell how important Sony machines were/are to EA because you never heard anyone say such nice things about the GameCube now, did you?