Unless EGM is doing multiple April Fools jokes, this isn't the April Fools gag. Lego Halo was their joke this year.
I don't have a source, but I think I've read before that EA has to release Madden on all consoles. Trying to remember where it was I read that.
I still don't think this is happening though(even if the all console/Madden thing didn't exist). Why would EA take the risk of making their own console(most don't succeed) and at best get a portion of the market, when they can have 100% of the market now? Then they would have to hope everything goes just right so third parties would support it. It might trim dev costs for games(one console instead of many), but most of EA's games aren't costing that much to develop in the first place. And it certainly wouldn't offset the cost of bringing their games to multiple consoles when you factor in the cost of making a console for themselves. Things would have to go perfectly for it to pay off, and they would need to have NES-like market share to make it worth the effort.
"I feel like I could take on the whole Empire myself."
