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The Asterisk on Madden's Annual Release Legacy (polygon.com)
Madden '96 for PlayStation never shipped, yet it changed the history of football video games -- and sports games in general -- for decades in its wake. Polygon has the behind-the-scene story. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt: The story starts back in 1992, when EA Canada (formerly Distinctive Software) began working on Super Nintendo versions of the NFL series. Over its first two entries -- John Madden Football and John Madden Football '93 -- the studio struggled to match the quality of Blue Sky Productions' Sega Genesis work. EA Canada's developers faced a coding challenge: The slower processor speed of Nintendo's 16-bit console limited what they could do. The games hovered around 15-20 frames of animation per second, making the games feel sluggish despite looking nice in stills. As the studio moved on to its third try, Madden NFL '94, it seemed like the performance issues would continue. Enter Visual Concepts, then a 6-year-old upstart known for parody fighting game ClayFighter and platformer Lester the Unlikely. The team had been working on isometric helicopter sim Desert Strike for EA, and had been getting a lot out of the SNES hardware.
Mostly it's about Sony Computer Entertainment America's failure to adequately support third-party developers during the launch window for Sony's debut console, the original PlayStation. Japanese developers and SCEA got usable docs; North American third parties didn't at first. Because of the timing of that particular console release cycle, Visual Concepts couldn't get a PlayStation version of Madden '96 out by November 1995 without accepting the limits of the engine that had been used for the 3DO version of Madden '94.
I saw Slashdot's posting of this story as possibly egging on yet another PC vs. console debate, with PC fans bragging that their platform's release cycle isn't nearly as abrupt as that of consoles. It would also provoke a debate about whether EA's acquisition of exclusive rights to the rosters of the major leagues for a particular sport at both professional (NFL) and collegiate (NCAA) levels ought to have triggered an antitrust investigation, as competing gridiron football video game publishers would have no league from which to license a roster.
It's WAY past time to break up the "single license for the entire fricking league" licensing that's in place today.
Madden's ultra-realistic take is one way to do it, but it turns off more casual gamers like me. (The only Madden I've bought in the last ten years was...a single copy of one of my favorite NFL years...used at a garage sale.) I'd rather have a choice of games - like in the good old days of baseball games for the NES - and let the best one rise to the top.
Is there something about this story that I'm missing?
It's a dupe from April 2006.
This is something that happened in the 90's
we're getting close
I read this a couple days ago. It is an interesting piece of game development history, but the article really didn't back up the claim of how the PS Madden '96 "changed the history of sports games for decades to come". If anything it just resulted in the establishment of 2 game development houses: Visual Concepts (the 2K sports games) and EA Tiburon (Madden).
How is this news? This is information about something that happened in the '90s. It could be considered news in 2000 but we're multiple console generations detached from any relevance.
Is there something about this story that I'm missing?
Maybe not news, but at least it isn't politics. Interesting article, I'm reading it, but then again I like the history of video games and tech in general.
It's news to me and I found it to be an interesting story.
I thought by the misleading title that it would be for the Tom Brady cover.....
For me, Tecmo Super Bowl for the NES was the best football game ever produced. Modded ROMs are still being produced for rule changes and updated players:
http://tecmobowl.org/
There's the news!
Slashdot publishes an interesting story: if that's not news, then nothing is.
"The team had been working on isometric helicopter sim Desert Strike for EA"
There are several ways I'd describe that game, simulation doesn't make it on that list. That's like calling your old slot racer kit a driving simulator.
Why is parent marked "Troll"? It's a worthwhile question that has prompted useful responses.
The three co-founders of EA Tiburon were Jason Andersen, John Schappert, and Ian Schmidt. Steve Chiang didn't come on-board as GM until some months after Tiburon had been established.
Source: One of the actual original three is a good friend of mine.
What this article reinforces for me is the difference a super-programmer can make. You can't just take ten lesser programmers and and pretend that the output will be the same as one especially gifted one. To me it looks like without Schappert, nothing could be done. According to the article twice he completely turned things around where others were thrashing without success: once with Madden '95 and then again when their college game was turned into Madden.