The Madden series began losing online features in 2006 and the trend has not reveresed itself yet. NCAA and Madden both released in the last 3 months with pitiful online experiences on their respective launch dates, and while the lag-issue seems to be largely gone on those games, there are still reports of dropped games, players receiving “losses” on their records when their opponent quit the game and a variety of other online maladies that ruin the overall experience.

Throw in the fact that for Madden there are – pardon the pun here – multiple maddening errors in uniforms that cannot be corrected online (or offline in some cases) due to the players being locked out of using selected jerseys in online play, and you have another online failure this year.

I shudder to think how butchered the NHL leagues are going to be.

The main problem I have with all of this is that these types of online features – gamecast, gamernet, NCAA uploadable highlights – are the future of gaming and EA, one of the biggest and most deep-pocketed companies in the industry, keeps dropping the ball at every turn. It is high time for them to get the act together and put out a product with fully functioning features and not just that, but also with fully functioning ground-breaking features that set the industry standard.

If they do not do this, then ultimately they will fail and someone else will replace EA as the dominant game publishers in North America (and much of the world). No one ever thought that Sony would come out and knock out Sega and take Ninentdo off the #1 console perch either…but it happened when Ninentdo failed to adapt to a changign market quickly enough.

Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it….is anyone at EA studying these days????

The Madden series began losing online features in 2006 and the trend has not reveresed itself yet. NCAA and Madden both released in the last 3 months with pitiful online experiences on their respective launch dates, and while the lag-issue seems to be largely gone on those games, there are still reports of dropped games, players receiving “losses” on their records when their opponent quit the game and a variety of other online maladies that ruin the overall experience.

Throw in the fact that for Madden there are – pardon the pun here – multiple maddening errors in uniforms that cannot be corrected online (or offline in some cases) due to the players being locked out of using selected jerseys in online play, and you have another online failure this year.

I shudder to think how butchered the NHL leagues are going to be.

The main problem I have with all of this is that these types of online features – gamecast, gamernet, NCAA uploadable highlights – are the future of gaming and EA, one of the biggest and most deep-pocketed companies in the industry, keeps dropping the ball at every turn. It is high time for them to get the act together and put out a product with fully functioning features and not just that, but also with fully functioning ground-breaking features that set the industry standard.

If they do not do this, then ultimately they will fail and someone else will replace EA as the dominant game publishers in North America (and much of the world). No one ever thought that Sony would come out and knock out Sega and take Ninentdo off the #1 console perch either…but it happened when Ninentdo failed to adapt to a changign market quickly enough.

Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it….is anyone at EA studying these days????