I only have a couple of things to say about this.

[Boilerbuzz]

This is the worst thing that could happen to the genre.

It's as much about the NFL being greedy, spineless bastages.

Anybody that's happy about this DESERVE what's coming to them and what's coming is - a MORE expensive core game (maybe not now, but later), a fee for online play modes (not just one, but many - fee to just play online, fee for leagues and other content. They WERE going to do it last year, but with ESPN out there with free online features, they quickly killed it), a separation of games leaving multiple games weaker to create the incentive to by the other. Why do I have to buy a football manager game when Madden should give us all of those same features in Franchise.

Last but not least - this will put the console makers at the mercy of EA. If you don't play nice with EA, they won't put football on your system. Face it folks, the EA/Sony marriage almost kept Madden off of the XBox. But with the prospects of the 2k series being the only thing on the system, EA HAD to put Madden on the XBox.

Let's be honest here, Madden and the 2K series fed off of each other. They force one another to come up with new innovative features. Some of which were features that only each team thought of. We've gone from a thinktank of 2 companies to now only one.

This sucks.