Six Free Hours of Madden for Xbox One Owners

[DustinT]

Looks like EA Sports is in the holiday spirit. The company is giving a free six-hour trial to those who might be on the fence of making a purchase. Plus, plenty of gamers opened up a new console this Christmas which will allow EA to build its customer base.

EA Sports Press Release - Lots of football fans will unwrap Xbox One this holiday season. But Christmas morning is just getting started from there.

Beginning Christmas day, December 25, fans will be able to experience a six-hour trial of Madden NFL 15 on Xbox One.* Fans can find the trial on the Xbox One dashboard, or in the Microsoft Store.

The Madden NFL 15 Christmas Day trial is a full game version with access to popular game modes including Connected Franchise Mode (CFM) and Madden Ultimate Team (MUT).

For those interested in purchasing Madden NFL 15 after participating in the trial, all progress gained during the trial period across all game modes will carry over, including those unlocked in CFM & MUT.

The trial is expected to live between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m., UTC. The trial period runs from December 25 to January 1, 2015.

[bxphenom7]

Good idea from EA. Wish it was possible on PS4.

[oakevin]

Says the trial is expired.

[ChrisMortensenDSPN]

Re: Six Free Hours of Madden for Xbox One Owners

How do you get the trail?

[SVCbearcat10]

Good PR but that's about it. With this Sunday being Week 17, and the trial starting Christmas Day, anyone who was going to get the game either had it already or got it Christmas morning. If you don't have it already, it's probably worth waiting until the spring/summer when it's finally free with that EA subscription service.

[kidtnt27]

Re: Six Free Hours of Madden for Xbox One Owners

The EA servers have been down for me all day.....is this the same for everyone else?

[J ROCK 05]

Re: Six Free Hours of Madden for Xbox One Owners

The EA servers have been down for me all day.....is this the same for everyone else?

Yeah man been down all day sucks...

[Skyflame21]

Don't worry about missing the opportunity. The game isn't really worth the time. Madden is a very poor and mostly boring game of football. I truely believe that the game needs a complete reset, as it fails on so many levels.

[FaceMask]

Re: Six Free Hours of Madden for Xbox One Owners

I gave up on XBOX systems with XBOX-One (just didn't want it for a number of reasons) and decided to make the jump to PS4. Well, I just recently received an XBOX-One and 7 games. Wasn't even expecting it.

Downloaded the free Madden trial and my initial thoughts are:

PLUSES

+ Models and textures are identical to the PS4 version of the game, but dark colors are deeper and light colors and lighting are a tad brighter, giving the graphical edge to the XBOX One version.

+ Pocket pressure sensing via the vibrating triggers is a nice touch.

+ Voice commands are cool and useful, but it would be helpful from a functionality standpoint if MS and/or EA figures out having these work with the headset, as sometimes having to scream at the Kinect is tiresome.

+ A number of animation sequences that play out like a mess on PS4 play out smoother on XBOX One, including a number of tackles, momentum and change of direction animations. Having the full PS4 copy, this angers me immensely.

+ At least judging from the free trial, it appears the XBOX One version recognizes the time of year and adjusts the temperature accordingly, because the players breath showed when I was playing the Panthers Vs. the Seahawks in Play Now. It doesn't do this in the PS4 version, and I'm upset!

EDIT: Apparently, this was happening because the game was still installing, so in Play Now I was only able to use the Panthers and Seahawks at Seattle; the game was still was using the data from the Panthers-Seahawks mini-game intro which included the cold temperature. After the game was fully installed, this no longer happened in Play Now.

MINUSES

- Frame rate is often noticeably not as smooth or as stable as the PS4 version. Often times you can clearly see it's running well below 60fps. Saw one particular instance where the frame rate dropped while a player was diving through the air to make a low tackle and the slow down made him look like he was diving in slow motion.

- EA requiring an Origin Account to use online features is not something I want to deal with, but this game forces it.

- Can't take screenshots. I know at least Forza 5 on XB1 has a screenshot feature. EA could put this feature in at some point, but overall this is an XBOX One console software issue meaning that screenshots should be system end so they can be taken in every game. MS needs to get their butts in gear with this.

[MoneyOvaHuds]

Re: Six Free Hours of Madden for Xbox One Owners

Screenshots are coming to the xb1 in feature updates

[FaceMask]

Re: Six Free Hours of Madden for Xbox One Owners

Screenshots are coming to the xb1 in feature updates

Sounds good. I've been hearing that for over a year now though. I wonder what the issue is.

[MoneyOvaHuds]

Re: Six Free Hours of Madden for Xbox One Owners

Sounds good. I've been hearing that for over a year now though. I wonder what the issue is.

It's not a simple process like he thought said Major Nelson , but it's coming prob early 2015 with the new dashboard update .