Madden kicks off the video game parade

It amazes me year after year that franchises like Madden and FIFA continue to break sales barriers. I have to imagine everyone has a collection of coaster discs of past games sitting in their living room as they run out to buy or order online the latest copy. I confess I’ve broken that tradition myself. At first I would alternate between a rival franchise (2K comes to mind) and an EA game, but as fewer and fewer competitors get into the professional sports arena, I simply only bought one every second year and recently not at all. I suppose a subscription is probably the best way to sell these annual titles. People will pay the full amount to get access to the game and on an annual basis you get new content. In addition, you can convert the late buyers who are buying second hand or discounted copies into full price. This cuts out the retail stores though. And I’m sure the Wal-Marts and Best Buys will be mighty disappointed there is less foot traffic in their stores.

And of course with the release of Madden come the release of other games – a Call of Duty, some form of Halo, a competitor to Call of Duty (last year Battlefield, this year Medal of Honor), some racing game, some Resident Evil title – it sure is getting predictable these days.

Going away from predictability, the Wii U is coming out and you would assume Nintendo would be making a massive marketing push for their new console. As of now, I’ve yet to see it though. Of course, I’m still rather confused as to the premise of the console with its tablet sized game controller but then I was confused at the launch of the original Wii what motion gaming was all about. What baffles me is the screen which is tethered wirelessly to a console accepting optical media. You can apparently use it in lieu of a television but you still have to be in the vicinity of the console so what’s the difference between that and an iPad or Android tablet. Hopefully a fifteen second advertisement will explain everything.