In the same conference call announcing Madden Arcade, EA Sports boss Peter Moore said this year's version of the football franchise is doing better in pre-sales than last year's 20th anniversary edition.
As reported by IndustryGamers, Moore said that, with 10 days to go before the Aug. 14 drop, "we're now marginally ahead year-on-year." Last year, the pre-sales apparently were uninteresting enough that EA felt it relevant to ask if they were an key indicator of a title's strength at release. "But we're marginally ahead and the buzz we're now starting to feel for the title is starting to build," Moore boasted.
This year, Madden 10 will ship on a Friday, to take advantage of the preceding Thursday night NFL debut featuring the Steelers and the Cardinals - the Super Bowl contestants whose Troy Polamalu and Larry Fitzgerald, respectively, grace the cover.
"There will be a tremendous amount of marketing both at half-time and in and around the game on that, so hopefully we'll have a very strong launch at 12:01AM on August 14th," he said. "All the metrics are very, very positive right now for Madden."
Madden NFL 10 Pre-Sales Tracking Ahead of 09, Says Peter Moore [IndustryGamers]