Fonzerelli said: Need for Speed: Underground EA 0.08 2.99 3.42 6.49 Need for Speed: Underground EA 0.00 1.02 0.62 1.64 Need for Speed: Underground EA 0.01 0.63 0.52 1.16 Total Worldwide - 9.29 Million copies Need for Speed: Underground 2 EA 0.08 2.63 3.67 6.38 Need for Speed: Underground 2 EA 0.00 1.19 0.86 2.05 Need for Speed: Underground 2 EA 0.01 0.65 0.43 1.09 Need for Speed: Underground Rivals EA 0.02 0.64 0.49 1.15 Total Worldwide - 10.67 Million copies Need for Speed: Most Wanted EA 0.08 1.82 2.16 4.06 Need for Speed: Most Wanted EA 0.00 0.54 0.52 1.06 Need for Speed: Most Wanted EA 0.03 0.59 0.50 1.12 Need for Speed: Most Wanted EA 0.02 0.94 0.69 1.65 Total Worldwide - 7.89 Million copies Need for Speed: Carbon EA 0.05 0.98 0.00 1.03 Need for Speed: Carbon EA 0.03 0.57 0.47 1.07 Need for Speed: Carbon EA na na na 0.36 Need for Speed: Carbon EA na na na 0.21 Need for Speed: Carbon EA na na na 0.77 Need for Speed: Carbon EA na na na 0.56 Total Worldwide - 4 Million The slide started with NFS Most Wanted and has been particualrly damning with NDS : Carbon. Since  NFS : Most Wanted, EA has gradually started shifting its lead development platform from the PS2 to 360. EA might be spending too much time chasing the extra 10$ bonus next gen versions (X360&PS3) provide and losing out on their lead sales platform. Madden 07 sold almost 2.25M on its first week, compared to that Madden 08 barey managed to break 1.5M copies.  EA is clearly losing sales by setting their priorities on the worng platforms.

So you're saying that EA should give up on the versions that have the bulk of the sales and instead focus on the rapidly shrinking PS2 platform and their worst selling platform, Wii?  Why not have them simply make a kickass Need for Speed game that will sell across all platforms?  Maybe that might make more sense...

Carbon was a piece of crap. Most Wanted was a ton of fun, but the gamecube version didn't run as well as it should have and it obviously should have failed QA in several areas (the last mission was impossible due to slow down at ~3 frames per second). EA targets a platform and ports so egregiously badly that non-target platform almost always suck. Look at Carbon on the Wii --it was literally worse than the gamecube version. Ironically, you were better off buying the gamecube disc and putting it in your Wii than buying the Wii version.

I agree that EA likes to run their franchises into the ground. Release it every other year and put a better quality product out.

The past 2 years the quality of the EA titles have been poor at best, unplayable to many.

I think that the underground racing 'fad' is diminishing, as well. A lot of these types of games were released right around when 'The Fast and the Furious' came out and there was a lot of curiosity and interest about the sport. People's interests have changed, but game companies keep releasing 'Juiced 2: Juicy Import Juiciness Part Deux!' when the market is looking towards other types of racing.

It's understandable that EA wants to have a racing game out there every year, but if they had several different brands from wildly different sub-categories like kart racers or sims, and then alternated them, they could potentially keep more interest in each brand, and could definitely keep longer sustained sales of each game.

Same thing goes for Medal of Honor. While it makes sense to have Madden and FIFA every year, because there's a new sports season every year, the NfS and MoH franchises just become cheapened by EA's insistence on annual editions.

Yeah, I'm not sure this is a total mistake - just look at the sales of stuff like Madden and Mario Party - but I agree on a personal level.  When I see a new game released every single year, I just think, "Oh, I can always wait for next year's version."   Knowing that pushes me to buy something else.

If you look at the sales of Medal Of Honor : Airborne it had one of the worst debuts for a Medal Of Honor game. The PS2 and Wii versions of Airborne were hived off into a budget release "Medal Of Honor : Vanguard" which was not received very well both critically and commercially.
MOH: Airborne could have performed much better if had divided its resources among other consoles instead of putting all their eggs on the Next-Gen basket.

Personally I hate the NFS games since Underground, too much customization is ruining the game. I Like to load the game, choose one car and start the race.

I was just playing NFS:MW multiplayer and was really annoyed when people took a few minutes to mod their cars.

I miss the good old NFS especially HOT PURSUIT dam that was good. since then i hav never brought another NFS game.

Umm, I would say that has a lot more to do with Call of Duty series from Activision steal MOH's thunder. Think about COD4, it looks amazing and has been marketed out the wazoo going back months and everybody wants it. Now look at MOH Airborne, not publicity, no multiplayer focus, graphics not up to par, and it's another WW2 shooter that everybody is tired of, when the COD series jumped into modern times. Which now MOH will probably copy next year I imagine, a year too late.

Nobody buys PS2 games anymore, that is why companies dont "focus" on them. I'm not sure what you mean by "focus" anyway. They made the game on PS2, didn't they? They cant force people to buy it. 

Look at PS2 Madden, it's sales fell a huge amount this year, even though EA focused on the PS2 version more than the 360 version. 

Basically, sales drive focus and not vice versa..PS2 software sales are falling off a cliff and it would be really stupid to dedicate resources to that market at this point..maybe you have a slight point with this past few months releases, but everyday that goes forward PS2 gets less relevant. 

@ Sharky
EA's lead platform for Madeen was 360 & PS3 to an extent.
The PS2 version has been roundly criticized to be a roster update and failed to even retain a few features from last years edition.