NHL vs Madden???

[marc68]

Years ago when I had more time I guess I always bought NHL hockey and Madden and for the most part they were pretty damn good games every year.

Well I have not bought NHL since the PS1 days....I just lost interest I guess. (no hockey team in Indy)

But, I always bought Madden and as we all know up until this year, it has been rather stale.........HOWEVER!

As I read the yearly reviews and opinions of NHL it appears to be one of the best games around...consistently.

Which brings me to my point, how can EA have to different sports games being developed every year and one be at the top of its game every year and the other be mediocre at best????

If NHL can be fresh and GOOD every year...why cant they get Madden to this point??

I find it hard to believe that it all boils down to competition where NHL has competition and Madden doesn't so the developers of Madden "dont try" as hard.

Is it harder to develop a video game?? Is hockey easy???

I dont know the answer, but it is curious to think about.

[Spanky]

Aside from the fact that different development teams work on the games, the answer is really simple:

NHL has heavy competition from the 2K series, forcing it to improve.

Madden is your only option for a new NFL game.

That's basically what it comes down to.

[Mic2904]

NHL looks great. The feature that you actually can play with a complete user roster (all player played by users) looks amazing!

[Radioactiveman]

Madden would be where NHL is today if they would not have rebuilt the thing from the ground up on next gen. It looks to me like NHL was not rebuilt form the ground up and the franchise is light years ahead of Madden in the realms of "fun factor" and "options"...I haven't bought NHL in years but am defiantly getting it this year because the demo rocked and I'm really stoked about the online stuff. I'm a NFL fantatic and have limited to no interest in the NHL but as far as video games are concerned, I haven't been this excited about a game release in a long time. I haven't had that feeling for Madden in a long long time.

[Pat788]

NHL Next gen has been built from the ground up. The reason why the nhl serie is good now is because of competition from 2k. Nhl 03, 05 and 06 were pretty bad and lots of consumers incld. myself switched to the other hockey game. The loss of consumers made ea open their eyes and decided to hire a new programing crew to try and match 2k's game.
Last year's game was good enough to earn 7 sports game of the year award.

When you have competition, you can do amazing things.

[copecowboy]

I like both games, but nhl seems to be far ahead these days.

[xV3L0CiTY]

Competition. Period.

Also has to do with, a little bit, hockey is an easier game to develop.

[speedkills]

Have EA Canada develop Madden 2010. Problem solved.