Even if there wasn't a relevancy clause, Madden on Wii does quite well.

Anyways, EA said they wouldn't be releasing all their sports games on Wii this year and this was the obvious choice. At the same time, this doesn't contradict their statements on the Wii focus at all. They said half their titles would be on the Wii, and we already know most of those titles at the time.

1.Madden
2.Grand Slam Tennis
3.Tiger Woods
4.Fifa
5.My Sims Party
6.My Sims Racer
7.Nascar Kart
8.Boom Blox Party
9.Dead Space Extraction
10.Need for Speed Nitro


This is not counting NBA, NHL or any other sports titles, as well as their family game titles, Rockband and who knows what other franchises. (my original list had 17 games, but I'm not going to hunt for that thread)

EA didn't make a Ubisoft announcement like "We're going to be the best developer on the Wii", they just said it was their new focus and that half of their current titles (25) were on the system.

Developers don't cre about attach rate. If a game makes money there really is no reason not to keep it moving. Especially one that shares a lot of assets with the PS2/PSP version (sadly). I doubt Madden is selling below expectations because the series hasn't broken a million on A nintendo system in years (ever?).

sales expectation should have changed with nintendo becoming the highest selling console. prior genrations saw the PS series with most consol units and most copies of madden. madden has been able to grow year over year but not as much as it should mainly due to terrible nintendo sales

I'd rather they take resources away from the HD consoles & put it on NCAA to make it better.  Basically EA made a crap game, it didn't sell, now we have no NCAA on Wii.

Of course instead of taking resources away from the HD consoles, which caused them to lose half a billion dollars last quarter, they would rather just give the Wii the shaft.

If EA would've added Franchise Mode & Campus Legend on the Wii version people would have bought it. Plus, the took off the sideline cameramen. The game was horrible. EA didn't put any effort into making that version in the first place.

Or maybe we can just acknowledge that the niche market for College football games isn't on the Wii, just as Rayman Raving Rabbid games aren't going to sell on the HD consoles. Most people had no idea what quality the game was because they didn't care. Wii owners who wanted a football game bought Madden. Making NCAA a great football game won't change the fact that most Wii owners just won't be interested.

Development costs for Madden, NCAA, etc... are probably the smalles of any games out there.  Really all they have to do is update the player rosters and maybe optimize the engine a little, but these sports franchises are real cash cows.

Dude, the game was completely gimped compared to HD versions.  Read some reviews or consity06's post.

They probably shifted the Wii NCAA team to work on Madden, either for this year title or in preparation for an overhaul of the serie on the Wii for the next one.That what I would do anyway.

It's obvious that the Wii offer some possibility that are impossible to do on platform with classic controller, possibility that could attract new consumers, football fan over 25 for example, but to explore these possibility you need time, trial and error, to see what work and what doesn't.

This cause a problem for EA for most of there big sport franchise though, because they are obligated to do a title every years on all revelant platform. It take a lot more man hours to implement a different approach than to simply make improvement on an old one. And where better to take these developers than from a group that did the exact same kind of game on the exact same platform?

It's not like EA decided "We don't do a Wii version this years, let send all these guy on vacation."