This is for College Football:

Make the retail disk for hardcore simulation gamers, then utilize "FREE" DLC for newcomers and casual gamers (trying to do both on one disk is limiting both).

Allowing full customization would take care of all if not most of the topical framework (Players, Stadiums, Threshold Sliders[Ball speed/distance, Positional Attributes, Attendance], Playbooks, Adjust Top 25 etc...

Throwing animations that vary in time of release

Incorporate more stomach/shoulder catches with less hand catches.

Bodies hitting he turf on collisions (get rid of the 2-step dance)
--Special teams is killing the college game.

Apply playbooks to Coach's/Coordinators not the school.

Available plays in playbook tied to QB's experience/potential.

College Hoops 2k8 type of Pre-Game (allow ability to practice throws, punting/field goal kicking, returning)

Teams play to their "Team Star(s)"

Ability to hide attributes and just see how player's perform on the field.

Much more I know the community will note.

For NCAA, I would like for coach names to be generated. As stated above, have play calling tied to coaches and let them be available to move around like in Madden.

For both, the sideline has got to be better. I want to see the coach and actual players on the side while on the field. How about once in a while the assistant coach running down the sideline on a big play, coaches and players cheering, the defense/offense getting ready on fourth downs?

The booth commentaries on both get old fast. Have the booth talk more about individualized players and their past (previous game/yearly) performance.

Full editing/customization of conferences.

Tournament style playoff option for NCAA.

I do not mind in game ads. However, give us the option yes/no to have them. Also, if you are adding ads, you've got to give me something like new cut scenes and animations.

Do something with the halftime show. Talk about school/organization, show plays from other big games, talk about keys to the game and comment on how the teams are/are not doing that.

Somehow more personality needs to be added everywhere.

Off the top of my head that's it.

I think NCAA & Madden both get a pretty rough deal when it releases. Each title carries a weight of expectation that is hard to deliver. The gameplay on both this years titles is the best it's ever been. That doesn't mean it's flawless but then no game is.

One of the problems with Football games is unless you are a fan of the sport you are unlikely to be interested in the game. This is unlike Hockey & Basketball games which can attract an outside audience.

For me the biggest disappointment in the current football games is their Franchise Modes. The mode isn't awful. There is far more depth than in EA's NHL series for instance. The problem is that each year there seems to be no innovation. A franchise mode shouldn't be just a load of stat screens. It needs to be interactive & include enough elements that keep you interested between games. If you don't do this then the week by week routines become dull & repetitive & no matter how well the game plays on the field, interest will start to lag.

EA's Extra Point was a good idea with it's launch in Madden 10. It was however poorly executed & heavily criticised. You would have expected the feature to come back in Madden 11 very much improved. Not the case. Instead EA dropped the halftime show & rehashed the weekly EP exactly as in 10.

It's these elements of laziness on the developers part year in year out that disillusion gamers & ultimately start to turn the fanbase away. EA have a terrible habit of leaving elements of their games untouched from 1 year to the next. A key to making a game feel new is by making it look fresh each year. Having a franchise mode whose screens are almost identical from one year to the next (Madden 10 to 11) immediately makes the game feel old.

I have just watched a gameplay video of NBA 2K11 & although it is obviously a 2K basketball game, little touches such as new stat overlays & even more commentary lines, make it feel fresh. EA need to take the same approach.

Having exclusivity to the NFL license has a negative impact on game quality. Without competition there will always be a tendency by developers to cut corners when making a new instalment.

stop saying "the gameplay is the best its ever been " or "this has the best madden graphics yet".....THEY SHOULD!!!

Madden needs a complete online franchise. That means a salary cap, free agent bidding system, etc. I don't want to hear about lack of number when it comes to usage. Build it RIGHT and they will come.

NCAA just needs to continue working on the gameplay and adding to the presentation.

Both need to add an element that makes the game more of a pre-snap chess match. Knowing your opponent runs a WR screen every 3rd and 4 should count for something. You should have a pre-snap window of choices where you can boost your players by making a correct call on what is going to be run. Nothing overblown but a decent boost that increases your chances of a successful outcome. This would make it more of a chess match (an this would be easy for hardcore or casual gamers). Think back to Tecmo Bowl. You guys a guys play it gets blown up. Well I don't want anything like that but whether I am a casual gamer or hardcore, it would be nice if I knew 100% that I was going to see a sweep to the right if I made the pre-snap call I was highly likely to shut it down. Of course if it was a play action pass I would have to suffer the consequences.

EA Tiburon is trapped in that "damned if you do, damned if you don't" cycle. They have tried marketing hype, tweaks, gimmicks, presentation overhauls, you name it. There is progress from year to year, but the results are closer to the Sun Bowl than the Rose Bowl.

An earlier post commented on the need for more and better motion capture. I agree. Visually, the imagery of the sidelines and the stands needs to be more consistent. When the focus is on the field, or celebrating animated fans, the game looks good. The visual quality completely drops off when we see pudgy players on the sidelines, whose only animation is to throw their hands up in the air, while wearing jerseys with the number "08," or crowd shots so pixelated they look like they are from a ten-year old PC game running a Voodoo GPU, instead of a Next Gen console. Tiburon needs to catch up to FIFA's quality of crowd shots.

More work needs to be done on line play, pass coverage, running the option, and CPU play-calling logic. Yes, these have been addressed before, and have shown improvement, but they need further refinement. Special teams could use a tweak, instead of being so dependent on suction and script.

The Tiburon crew is probably being expected to do more with less. Look around, we all are. Keep up the good work, keep striving. That's the difference between chilly El Paso and sunny Pasadena on New Year's Day.

EA has a monopoly on the license so they are NOT going to push the envelope and be innovative with gameplay. The only way for them to gain fans and retain the ones they have is to try to open up the market and challenge themselves to create the best football game on the market.

For starters they can give us something that 'feels' realistic like the FIFA franchise. The football games certainly 'look' realistic but don't play fluid like FIFA. The beautiful thing about FIFA is that literally anything can happen. The football games just feel like the same canned animations over and over and over, until you buy the next series. And do it all over again. These football games are on rinse and repeat mode. Basically putting expensive lipstick on a pig. We want the players to look and feel like athletes, not robots. It's really just that simple. If there weren't other games out there that have mastered this, like FIFA, then I wouldn't be complaining.

@Godmadskillzson Excellent point about statue QBs. They all play the same. I would love to see QBs roll out of the pocket and then take off instead of always throw it. Give them a scrambling rating.

Mobile QBs are one of the biggest differences between NCAA and the NFL and yet it's done very poorly. This should be a HIGH priority for the NCAA team. NFL QBs all play pretty similarly but not in college. Please fix this for NCAA 12!

Great Blog and all excellent points made by posters..Besides what has been stated to me Madden just lacks the immersion factor..In looking at last nights games you can see what madden is missing..The intensity of the crowd, the different player personalities, and most of all is the penalties mainly the pass interference penalties that completely change the dynamic of those games..It;s 2010 and we dont have anywhere near good wr/db interactionns and pass interference/holding penalties that ar3e crucial in todays game...While I am not a big 2K fan they did implement those two calls to a tee and it brought out the realism of the game.. NBA 2k and MLB the Show got it right in terms of establishing fundamental techniques involved in the games and bringing a sense of immersion in the game ..madden is severly lacking in both accouunts...

I think many people had excellent points. The problem I have with both games is that they eliminate features and never bring them back or bring them back little by little. For instance

NCAA
1) Remember the match-up indicators (Red/Green) to show if you had any favorable match-ups on offense or defense. This was so simple and so helpful especially if the other teams players were gassed, you could see when they put in subs.

2) What happened to the classic teams????

3) Already mentioned but I clearly remember last gen's versions had better QB scrambling AI.

Madden - Franchise

1) Player/team morale - I liked this feature.

2) scouting - this made franchise much more challenging when teams scouted your 3 favorite offensive and defensive plays

3) Training Camp - I just liked this feature.

Just two cents from a Madden 92 and Bill Walsh College Football vet.

the animation system makes the game seem stale . you see the same animations over and over.and when ea adds animations, its only a few.(running back stumbling forward for extra yards ) . players dont move like their real life counterparts . i want to look at a madden game and say " wow that's exactly how adrian peterson runs with the ball!) but it all comes down to animations. my solution , is to double the size of the game from 7gigs to 14gigs . on the ps3 it will be on one disc and on the 360 two discs- disc 1 offline disc 2 online . the increased size will be used for all the extra animations. example- 80-120 different takling animations, 200 different catching animations,200 different running animations. with all the different animations you wouldn't see the same one 40 times or more in a 6min quarter game. it would stay fresh and be less predictable. certain players would have a combination of certain animations so they could look and move like they do on sunday

dwiley747 – EXACTLY

Next-gen or this-gen or whatever it’s called has been a monumentous disappointment for me, all the way back to the first next-gen Madden. I was so stoked when a saw the graphics, I remember thinking this will be the coolest game ever. Man was I wrong… After half a quarter, I was like ‘you gotta be kidding me, maybe I have to install something.’ Then by halftime ‘what the hell is this’ and by the end of that first game. I was reading the backwards compatible list praying the ncaa06 or nfl 2k5 would be on it.

And on and on it goes, every year new cooler stuff, and yes…. The graphics are amazing. But are they that much better? Every year I play a few months of NCAA11, and when I can’t take it anymore, I go back to my franchise of NFL 2k5. The graphics of current-gen are not that much better than the graphics of the old-gen; they are when I zoom in on a reply, but during the actual game play there is not that much of a difference.

I think the thing that disappointed me the most, about the current gen, is that we have been forced to go backwards. Remember D-II schools, and stadiums. Remember being able to move your NFL team to another city. Remember weekly recaps with highlights from other games. Remember player of the game interviews. (this goes way back) remember watching your Stanley cup champions skate around with the cup. It’s all gone… all of it. And what do we have. We have towels, we have rubber bands on the players calves, we have 15 different kinds of helmet visors.

I think what I wanted from current-gen was last-gen with more stuff, more animations, more stories, more options; and maybe that’s what all of us wanted. We wanted NCAA to have a weekly recap, we wanted to have a real Heisman Trophy ceremony – with our player sitting in the front row. We wanted the commentators to be blown away by how big of an upset the game we are playing is. We wanted our star running back to get suspended for 5 games because he violated team rules. We wanted the goal post’s taken down. We wanted to see our team handing the national championship trophy to one another. We want to see the Gatorade poured over the coach. We want to see guys fall down. We want offensive lineman and wide receivers to run different. We want to see shirts come untucked. We want to see the trainers come out of the field when someone is hurt. We want to see amazing Desmond Howard catches in the back of the end zone. We want to see blown coverage’s. We want Play action to work. We would love different commentators. We want different body styles. We want to see the coach lay into the qb after an interception.

Man, the list is endless….. And I would happily trade in the ‘amazing’ graphics for just some of it

EA needs to listen to the community. Simply put, they don't. They make the game they want, with the features corporate thinks will suddenly get people who don't play videogames to suddenly want Madden and be great at it the first time they play. Yet they keep ignoring their base, and citing play statistic data...such as online franchise play numbers. (Maybe if it wasn't so under featured and essentially "last gen" people would WANT to play it more?) Also, think of all the targeted junk that was gonna be "the thing" to lure the softcore audience to Madden, that has since been retracted. (Example: Weapons, and Madden IQ test). However, EA Tiburon has decided that pandering to people who normally don't buy Madden should totally trump pleasing your existing audience in almost all cases. And yet, Ian wonders why the haters. Pretty simple explanation, really. Bungie doesn't grow its Halo product by making each successive version softer/gentler with super-duper auto aim and a win button that automatically runs your Spartan to the proper area or select your tactics for you. No, they make the best game they can and make sure it is an evolution of the previous product. Same can be said for the Call of Duty designers.

" To longtime fans, they will feel the games are quite stale and average."

That's because it is stale and average. If EA wants to get longtime fans back, they need to realize there are 2 types of them 2k5 and Madden 05 fans.

The 05 madden fans will come back once EA realizes how much better ps2 madden is. Franchise is deeper, the minigames are more fun, superstar mode is more better, the game has better preplay adjustments like wr shading, individual bump/run, lead blocker controls, formation shifts, etc. In order to win these fans back, EA needs to not only put these things back, but take them to the higher level gamers would expect out of a nexgen game.

The 2k5 guys are another story. There are a number of them that will never accept madden over their beloved 2k and others that will need something amazing out of EA to make them give up hope the exclusive deal will end. If EA wants to get these guys on board, they have a lot of work to do. Presentation needs to be representative of a tv broadcast, complete with a deep halftime show. What EA has now looks like a feeble joke to 2k fans.

Until EA can get past these ghosts of 2005, it cannot regain the fans from that era of gaming.