There was a time with the Madden football games were considered to be a failure. This was due to a lot of false starts, if you will, along with the limitations of home computers 2 decades ago that severely limited the vision of the game. Of course it has come a log way since it was released in 1988. There are been over 85 million copies sold world wide adding up to more than 3 billion dollars in revenue. The game now features real professional players, pro-style plays, and the graphics make use of every ounce of technology available. Theses are a small sampling of the many reasons that have made it one of if not the most played playstation football games.
Madden was actually not the first professional approached by the developers of the game back in the 1980's. One of the top Quarterbacks at the time and other coaches were actually offered the opportunity but turned it down either though lack of interest or prior commitments. The game has evolved over the years and adds new features to each new release. Franchise mode was added to the game in almost a decade after it's creation. This allowed players to do more than just control the players. They could actually manage the rosters by trading and drafting players for their virtual teams. This was already being done with some baseball games available at the time but was a first for any football offering.
More game modes were brought to the user with the release of the 2003 version. Of course a player could start the game and choose to simply play a single game, only now they had the options to play an entire season and even multiple seasons. It was in this version that online play was first offered, initially exclusive to uses of the playstation 2 console. In the version released in 2004, the playmaker tool was introduced. This was an exciting new feature that gave players the ability to use joystick control to change the direction of plays at the line of scrimmage. This allowed for better audibles to be chosen after the defensive alignment was seen and greatly enhanced the realism for the game.
When the 2005 version was released, the playmaker tool was implemented for the defense. This was an important addition since in the previous versions the offense could make changes that were difficult for the defense to adjust to. Now, the defense could use the joystick to make adjustments just as the offense could. This made the game more fair on both sides of the ball and once again enhanced it's realism. The trick stick, lead blocker controls, a new weapons control, and even a feature called league play, which allowed up to 32 players to compete through the web over the course of an entire season, each arrived in subsequent versions of the game. The most recent versions shift the focus in an attempt to be more than just a game. The vision for Madden is now to be a more true to life simulation.
Playstation football games have dominated for good reason and have become as much a simulation as they are a video game. Playstation 3 Madden football games have been super popular for over 20 years, and future development promise to make the simulation even more true to life.
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