Madden NFL 09 Goes Gold

[Steve_OS]

EA have sent over a Press Release announcing that Madden 09 has "gone gold". What does this mean? Well traditionally it means that the game is ready to ship. In this case it is simply an excuse for EA to build some additional hype around the game. Given EA's tight development schedule and its planned ship date of early August, the game would currently be sitting with first party developers (Microsoft and Sony) as their internal test teams do their best to find as many compliance issues as possible. Its not ready to ship yet, but unless MS or Sony tell EA they must fix a bug, nothing else will be touched. The good news however is that the EA Producers have already made it clear that they want to patch the game sooner rather than later.

EA also sent over some new Madden 09 screenshots and some videos.

[texbuk84]

this is great news. at least if some bugs are found in the game they will be able to get them out sooner than later which would lead to people not complaining so much(hopefully)

[ewto16]

Sigh.....it seems to me that EA should have spent an extra 3-4 weeks actually testing and finishing some things in the game, rather than going gold 7 weeks early. How does that benefit anyone??

Those that say they can patch stuff now, should realize that EA is SUPER slow about making and releasing patches and the patch process itself is probably about 2 months, due to having to get it certified by Sony and MS. If there was still stuff to fix, and I'm sure there is, it would have made much more sense to spend another month fixing it before going gold.

This just gives me another reason to complain when I play Madden and can see it was tested one time by one monkey that knows nothing about football, much like Madden 08 was.

It is impossible to argue that the game wouldn't have benefitted from another month of development/testing. No wonder EA always says "We didn't have time" when we wonder why something wasn't included in the game. They cut their own development cycle short by a month.

[mastershake88]

so if it go gold. when will this thing get shipped?

[mastershake88]

Quote: Originally Posted by ewto16

Sigh.....it seems to me that EA should have spent an extra 3-4 weeks actually testing and finishing some things in the game, rather than going gold 7 weeks early. How does that benefit anyone?? Those that say they can patch stuff now, should realize that EA is SUPER slow about making and releasing patches and the patch process itself is probably about 2 months, due to having to get it certified by Sony and MS. If there was still stuff to fix, and I'm sure there is, it would have made much more sense to spend another month fixing it before going gold. This just gives me another reason to complain when I play Madden and can see it was tested one time by one monkey that knows nothing about football, much like Madden 08 was. It is impossible to argue that the game wouldn't have benefitted from another month of development/testing. No wonder EA always says "We didn't have time" when we wonder why something wasn't included in the game. They cut their own development cycle short by a month.

my words exactly...all i have to say is prepare for the threads to come in the hours after the game...

[thmst30]

I'm guessing those screenshots are from a much older build. Because the Saints and Cowboys helmet logos are still oversized in those screens.

[drlw322]

it would be nice that they could've fixed the celebration before it going gold

[kmart2180]

I dont understand the whole month early thing. Why not keep working to make things better rather than have a game sitting in boxes with a month to go to release. To me it makes no sense in making the game final now. All this time could be spent fixing bugs, or searching for them.

I hope that this means they are building the patch with fixes in hopes to have it come out with Madden 09 on same day.