Madden NFL 11 Message Board

For the entirety of the football season, IGN will be simming and highlighting the big games, using Madden NFL 12. Use it to get your football fix early, or just kill some time on a weekday. Week 3 is kicking off with the game you voted for, the Green Bay Packers taking on the Chicago Bears...

#stickjockey Even if a lockout doesn't happen - even if the dispute between owners and players is solved tomorrow - the labor unrest in the National Football League will have ramifications reaching well into the future - for video games. More »

#madden The last roster update for Madden NFL 11 hits sometime tomorrow, boosting Super Bowl MVP Aaron Rodgers to the coveted 99 OVR rating. This could be the roster Madden NFL 12 plays with if next season is interrupted by a lockout. More »

Publisher gets an extra year due to the threat of a lockout.

The Arizona Cardinals were the least popular team to play as in Madden 11 this season. According to EA Sports data obtained by The New York Times, of the more than 290 million games played (between Aug. 10, 2010 and Jan. 31, 2011) and tracked online across the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the current Madden, the Cardinals were chosen roughly 1 percent of the time as a human-controlled team by an undoubtedly stalwart core of fans still clinging to the Super Bowl run in '09 -- that's loyalty.

What the overall data suggests, however, is that many Madden players jumped on bandwagons from week to week, riding out the Eagles' dazzling, Week 10 demonstration -- at the Redskin's expense -- through most of the rest of the season to make Philly "by far the most popular team" to be selected. And players were just as quick to jump off, too: By the Cowboy's fifth-straight loss in Week 9, gamers began to accept that Dallas just wasn't going to get it done.

The rise of the Packers popularity (and Steelers' too), which peaked during the Conference Championship Games on January 23, is perhaps most illustrative of this trend, as the Green and Yellow spent most of the season hovering just above the NFL average for selection percentage until their real-life postseason surge pushed them to the "most popular team on Madden." Of course, we can never be certain how many of these fair-weather Packers players were actually attempting to channel the Curse and sabotage the return of the Lombardi Trophy to Titletown. (Psst, it's not gonna work until Rogers is on the cover.)

[Image graph source: NYTimes.com; click image to enlarge]

#stats The New York Times examined the popularity of today's Super Bowl participants - the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers - in Madden NFL 11 online play. By years' end they were, unsurprisingly, among the most popular. More »

#stickjockey The cover of Madden NFL is the modern Wheaties box. Every sport has its video game and a cover athlete, but only Madden gets the bar-argument debate over who deserves the front. That begins tomorrow after the clock hits zero in Super Bowl XLV. More »

What would the Super Bowl be like with only one team playing?

#sports With a work stoppage in the National Football League increasingly likely, Electronic Arts has said that Madden NFL 12 will be published - but the company is assuming a lockout will wipe out the entire 2011-12 season. More »

The traditional Superbowl prediction has commensed! See who wins in the Madden NFL 11 simulation!

Computers can be used to calculate all sorts of truly helpful data ... or they can be used to simulate the Super Bowl. If you're going to use processing power to predict the outcome of a sporting event, then you'd better be pretty darned accurate if you hope to maintain any semblance of a reasonable use of life (it still takes human people to run, recap and even report on -- hi there! -- the simulation). EA Sports' Madden games have at least been that, accurately calling the winner of six of the last seven Super Bowls.

This year, Madden 11 sees the Pittsburgh Steelers defeating the Green Bay Packers 24-20 in Super Bowl XLV, which sounds like a good enough guess. But now, do you put money on that? (After the break, delve into the video highlights and box score ... of the simulated game.)

Also vying for "reasonability" will be this Thursday's Madden Bowl XVII (wait -- there have already been sixteen of these?). The annual tournament of NFL players gamers whose seasons have been reduced to playing as themselves will be broadcast live on ESPN3 (on your Xbox Dashboard) at 9PM ET, February 3. Hey Niners fans, did you know Alex Smith has won a record two Madden Bowls? That's the same number of Super Bowl rings that Roethlisberger has -- well, until Sunday's victory, according to Madden.

Cancel the subs! Madden NFL 11 predicts that the Pittsburgh Steelers will win their record seventh Vince Lombardi Trophy, defeating the Green Bay Packers 24-20 in Super Bowl XLV, according to the annual EA SPORTS Super Bowl Simulation powered by Madden NFL 11. More »

Amazon's Gold Box deals are all about video games today. Currently Disney's Epic Mickey and Madden NFL 11 are in the hot seat. With a bunch more deals set to hit the rest of the day. More »

Great news! Remember last January, when you attempted to convince friends of your latent psychic ability by writing down the names of the top 10 best-selling games of the following year, when in all actuality, you were just using your knowledge of the gaming industry and its consumers? Well, you were totally right: The NPD Group's recently unveiled ranking of bestsellers looks pretty much how you'd expect, with Call of Duty: Black Ops ringing in at first place, while Madden NFL 11 and Halo: Reach came in at second and third, respectively.

You can check out the rest of the top 10 after the jump, though you could probably fill in the rest of the blanks using raw intuition. Here, give it a try. Yup. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yes, that too. Huh? Split/Second? Nope. Oh, but if wishing made it so.

#madden The folks at Madden NFL 11 put out a list of all plays run by all of its zillion-plus users so far, sorted by average gain. No. 2 is "Cougar Cross," which sounds like Rex Ryan's wife's best-selling video. More »

#easports John Madden does not fly. So when EA Sports convened with the namesake of their NFL title, they went to him, in Pleasanton, Calif. The studio invited USA Today for a look at what was discussed and next year's priorities. More »

#easports EA Sports is kicking off the Nintendo 3DS launch next year with a little Madden football, an off-season release that brings the NFL license into stereoscopic 3D in the palm of your hand. More »

#madden Last week, Madden NFL 11 slipped in a 3D presentation mode through a promotion with Doritos. It's the old-school red-and-blue 3D, and if it's not entirely free, it only costs a bag of chips. Is it worth even that? More »

#madden Sunday, Redskins coach Mike Shanahan benched his quarterback late in a winnable game, claiming "cardiovascular issues" made him unsuited to a hurry-up offense. Most though Shanahan was full of crap, but Madden NFL 11 took him at his word. Hilariously. More »

#screengrab A day after Minnesota bailed on a four-game experiment with Randy Moss, Tennessee claimed the talented headcase from the waiver wire. The Titans have a bye, but Moss will suit up in Madden NFL 11 when the roster update hits Friday. More »

In one of the most bizarre yet unavoidable cross-promotions to ever rear its head in the video game industry, EA Sports and Doritos Flavor-Dusted Corn Chips[TM] have announced a new "Doritos 3-D mode" accessible in Madden 11. To unlock the new visuals, which we assume introduce a 3D effect into the game (and don't turn everything on the field into Doritos), you've got to enter in a code found in specially marked packs of the aforementioned snack chips, then strap on a pair of old-school red-and-cyan glasses -- or the Doritos-branded glasses currently on sale for $2.99. (Fun fact: the glasses and the snack taste about the same!)

We'd love to see exactly what "Doritos 3-D mode" entails, but unfortunately, these codes are only available in packs of Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheese 'itos. Our refined palette requires more sophisticated flavor-hues, like Ragin' Lobster Bisque and Extreme Herbes de Provence Chicken with Mushroom Reduction.

EA Sports is on the way with a remedy.

Welcome to the new NPD report! The agency's new reticence means we have no idea how hardware did in September -- except for the Xbox 360, which was at the top of the charts with 483,989 units sold. The NPD does report that at $383 million, total hardware sales are down 19 percent year-over-year.

We have a bit more information about software, but the format has changed for that as well -- instead of each individual version of a game (on each platform, for example) counting as one game on the list, they've been totaled. So Madden NFL 11 occupies one slot on the top ten this month instead of two.

Halo: Reach would have done well regardless of this change (it's at #1, after all, and on only one platform) but now we see games on the top ten that might have been muscled out by the Maddens -- like Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep and Metroid: Other M. Microsoft, never one to ignore a success story, blasted out Halo: Reach's first-month sales numbers: 3.3 million units. It notes that Reach is "only the third game this generation to surpass 3 million unit sales in the first month." The first? Yup, Halo 3.

Embrace change after the break.

#dlc Last week's sponsorship with Verizon Wireless carries over to this week, meaning the three latest "Madden Moments Live" for Week Four of the NFL are free. Ordinarily they're redeemed with Madden Coins, earned in online play or purchasable outright. More »

#ratings Interestingly, the trade sending Randy Moss to Minnesota boosted the Vikings' overall rating in Madden NFL 11 without diminishing the New England Patriots'. Not that this is necessarily a zero-sum game, but what gives there? More »

#madden A sponsorship with Verizon Wireless means the three latest "Madden Moments Live" for Week Four of the NFL are 100 percent free. Ordinarily they're redeemed with Madden Coins, which are earned in online play or purchasable outright. More »

#madden The latest patch for Madden NFL 11 returns the scorebar pop-up ads last seen Madden NFL 10, but they don't display at the every-down frequency that annoyed so many when they rolled out midway through last year. More »

#madden Randy Moss's superhuman grab in Week Two against the Jets - and lockdown cornerback Darrelle Revis - boosted his "spectacular catch" rating in Madden NFL 11 to 100, the first time since 2008 any player's hit that score. More »

If you're looking to buy PS3 sadness simulator Heavy Rain just in time for the PlayStation Move patch, Amazon has discounted it to $39.99 as its Deal of the Day. In addition, the retailer has devoted its Gold Box page entirely to PS3 stuff today, with deals launching through 11PM ET.

Right now, you can also get Madden NFL 11 for $44.99. Future deals, according to Thrifty Nerd's guesses, may include 3D Dot Game Heroes and Transformers: War for Cybertron. Let the all-day Amazon refreshing marathon commence!

[Thanks, MLC]