Yup, animation is where it's at.
Let me say this: Unlike others I hold no animosity towards EA for getting the exclusive NFL License. It wasn't their idea, the NFL wanted to maximize their profit and put it up for bid EA WON the contract. They would have been crazy to not go all out to get it to continue the Madden Franchise. I just haven't liked the games they put out. 09 is a good game, not a great game. It took them 4 years to put out a good game on next gen, (Insert your own frustration here). At this point I wouldn't care if they hired the 2k team who apparently have superior ability to animate games and bring them to life. I just want a true mind-blowing video football game, if it's Madden or 2K on the cover it makes no difference to me.
The real tragedy in the license deal is that APF 2K8 sold what? 200K copies and Madden sells like 5-6 million copies? The game is 10 dollars at Best Buy and Gamestop, how could it not sell a million copies at this price? People love the NFL, not neccesarily video game football, so it's possible that a by-product of the exclusive license is that we won't see a fully realized next gen 2K football game.
APF 2K8 is so close to being the game I dreamed about while playing Madden 92 with my Sega Arcade Joystick for more hours than I care to admit. If they slapped the NFL license on APF 2K8 and released it as Madden 08 the game would have caused a revolution, the world might have exploded, as it is the game was outsold 30 to 1??? It's like seeing a poll where men favored Rosie O'Donnell to Scarlett Johannsen 30 to 1, I'm just as baffled.
I hope EA buys Take Two and turns them loose, how about the old AFL?? How about Madden AFL 1968!
Back to animation, my dream game would be something like Jets vs. Raiders 1968. Signature styles for every player 3 times the animations of 2K8, every last detail down to the white tape around Joe Namaths shoes, the tape getting tattered during the game. Joe Namath, the first QB to throw for 4000 yards in 1968 versus the Raiders Lamonica "The Mad Bomber". The Silver and Black versus the Green and White, take 2 teams and fill the disk with animations until it explodes.
Besided the animations which is my biggest gripe with Madden 09 is the SIZE of the players, it's just tough to look at them anymore.
The Madden business model is successful and in the end that's what really matters to a company and I don't have a problem with that either. It would take some very forward thinking by EA to build a better game. It's like the drug conversation in The Godfather, the problem isn't now but 5 years from now. They are really being passed by other developers, NBA anyone???
EA is a monolith, they're on top in football now but have been leaving the door open for a long time, leave it open long enough.....Rome fell so can EA. Go hire the best in the business instead of pretending you are, dishing out the big money for the NFL license was SMART. Hiring the best programmers in the world would be smarter, a tiny piece of the advertising budget would yield them the best programmers in the world, and in the end the best products. They've got the marketing part down, it's time for a better product to go with it.