I bought Wii U Madden 13.  The Gamepad playcalling and hot routes were actually the only reason I bought a Madden last year at all.  However, many saw it as a rushed game with gimped features because EA used the same engine as Madden 12 rather than the new engine PS3/360's Madden 13 got, and so they shunned it.  A lot of them were waiting for the "real" Madden to release on Wii U this year which thanks to EA never came.  Some of those people who also own 360 and/or PS3 aren't going to get Madden at all this year.  I own a 360 also, but I'm skipping Madden 25, because without the uniqueness of drawing my own receiver routes on the gamepad from the line of scrimmage, there is nothing to lure me in from previous editions.  It says something that Madden's sales are down this year despite a promotion which included NFL Sunday Ticket just by purchasing the game at a slightly higher retail.

1) The point of the article is the diminished year-over-year sales. It is disingenuous to ignore the fact that NFL 25 is on one fewer platforms this year than last year

2) To so ignore it, we would have to present a good argument as to precisely why it's on fewer platforms this year.

3) It is yet more disingenuous to point towards consoles that have a total install base of 0, presently.

4) Madden 13 was deliberately gimped on the Wii U. EA got precisely what they deserved there, and they know they could've done better if they had tried

The fact that Wii U and EA's intransigience has been excluded from the conversation is what's inappropriate here.

Madden on WIi U wasnt available at Madden 13 launch, so the lack of a Wii U version is irrelevant in this discussion when talking about comparing launch sales which is the point of the article. The platforms you should be talking about should actually be the PlayStation Vita and the Wii, which you completely ignore because you have tunnel vision on this EA hating Wii U thing.

Anyway sure. Ill bite. Lets take a look at opening Week sales for Madden 13 on Vita and Wii. Hell, Ill even throw in Wii U opening Week Madden 13 sales too.

Wii - 23k
Vita - 28k
Wii U - 10k

So yeah, this launch is missing a whopping 61,000 units from Nintendo platforms and the Vita. This explains why theyre down by ~600,000 units YoY.

Glad to see it down from last year. I'll never forgive the NFL for giving EA exclusive rights. 2K makes better sports games than EA.

Doesn't really deserve it

That's statistically significant, and cannot be denied.

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Lots of people are getting a PS4/XB1 and will pick up Madden then, I think that's all there is to it really. I'd probably wait too, even if it's the same game more or less, I'd rather play in 1080p than 720p.

It might be significant if we actually combined the platforms when we determine wether or not its worth developing for said platforms. Alas, we dont. We dont say its worth developing for Vita, because Vita and PS3 sales combined were over 500,000 units. 

Your gripe seems to be about a lack of a Wii U version. The Wii U version represents less than 2% of the ~600k drop. If the game sells that poorly, its simply not worth doing any more. Its a waste of resources that could be either saved or used elsewhere. It doesnt matter why the game sold so poorly, all that matters is that it did sell so poorly. Same goes for Vita and Wii versions.