http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/11/04/ea-lay-540-souls

I wonder if EA thought to blame DRM for lower sales, or if they just blamed piracy again.

ROFL. I bet they'll have to make 2 Maddens a year to recope the losses next time.

I do not like DRM either, but neither DRM nor Piracy is the issue here. DRM is not an issue because most of the population has either no clue what it means or if they do know what it means they couldn't care less about it. One could argue over the implications of Piracy all day and not get anywhere with it.

I doubt either DRM or piracy is causing it, but I'm sure EA is blaming everything under the sun

How can EA could lose that much money in the Madden quarter is beyond me. It's probably Spore's quarter as well.

I dunno spore was the only game to outsell WOW:Battlechest this past month.

It is all Boom Blox fault. It flopped so hard that it affected the lucrative HD development.
BTW, the idea of world without EA is getting me really excited.

According ot the article they blamed Harry Potter. Meanwhile Spore and madden where great. As we can see here on VGChartz EA is the biggest 3rd party seller and has been for a while. Something here is just fishy.

I remember EA said something about Madden's sales being below expectations.

Same here, hopefully if this should happen the few quality titles that haven't been completely whored to death find their way into the hands of capable developers.