Madden 12 News Post

August 30 Will Be the New Release Date for Madden This Year and Beyond

08:28 PM - April 13, 2011 by ChaseB

Last night Peter Moore announced at the EA Sports Season Opener event that Madden NFL 12 would be releasing on August 30 rather than August 13. This announcement seemed peculiar given the fact that the game has always released on August 13. It also only fueled speculation because there are the potential issues with an extended NFL lockout and key Tiburon developers leaving the Madden team in the middle of the development of this year's game.

However, after speaking with EA Sports PR representative Rob Semsey, it seems like more a case of bad timing than anything else. The release date will actually continue to be August 30 beyond just this year. The thought process behind the move seems to be to sync Madden up with the start of the real NFL regular season.

Obviously, other potential factors like giving NCAA Football a bit more space to collect sales before Madden releases should be taken into consideration, but the overall sense was this was not a decision that was made overnight, but rather one that the team had wanted to make for quite some time.

From my perspective, this makes a lot of sense considering Peter Moore went out of his way last night to point out that he thought the improved sales of Tiger 12 could at least be partially attributed to how close the real Masters was to when Tiger 12 released. Tapping into the excitement of the upcoming real sports season seems to be something EA really wants to focus on across all its sports brands moving forward, so it would not shock me to see other release dates slightly tweaked in the future.

Game: Madden NFL 12Reader Score: 6.5/10 - Vote Now
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Member Comments

# 1 bukktown @ 04/13/11 08:34 PM

Do you mean the last week of august or that august 30th is the only day it will ever be released on?

# 2 iva-chargers-fan @ 04/13/11 08:43 PM

i just buy madden because its football and NFL. but if ncaa football was also nfl i would go with ncaa

# 3 jeremym480 @ 04/13/11 08:44 PM

Very smart move for a myriad of reasons.

Pros
1. It gives "little brother" a chance for more sales (I'm not sure you can call them that anymore though)
2. Give the devs more time to catch bugs/glitches (this year only really)
3. Gives them time to build up anticipation during the pre-season
4. Opening Day rosters will be more accurate
etc., etc., etc

Cons
I actually can't think of a single con. Well, other than having to sift through a bunch of whiny, impatient people complaining but, other than that--- they're golden.

# 4 SageInfinite @ 04/13/11 08:49 PM

Why now though? Don't get me wrong I'm happy, I'm just wondering what took them so long to realize this was a much better release date.

# 5 PantherBeast_OS @ 04/13/11 09:04 PM

I really think this is a good move on EA part to move up the release date. To give people more time to play NCAA football and also gives Madden Dev team a little more time on working out the bugs and glitches in the game. I have nothing agaist them moving up the release by a few weeks. I see it as a good thing more then anything.

# 6 ChaseB @ 04/13/11 09:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SageInfinite


	Why now though? Don't get me wrong I'm happy, I'm just wondering what took them so long to realize this was a much better release date.

They had to battle it out with the almanac folks to make sure they knew the new Madden Holiday was changed?

# 7 djordan @ 04/13/11 09:07 PM

Can't argue with the date. The only negative is that we will have to wait longer to get our hands on the game.

# 8 SageInfinite @ 04/13/11 09:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChaseB


	They had to battle it out with the almanac folks to make sure they knew the new Madden Holiday was changed?

Sounds good right?

# 9 Nature_Boy @ 04/13/11 10:39 PM

I think it's a great idea. I have always thought that NCAA Football and Madden were released too close together. Now this gives NCAA a little more breathing room.

# 10 Joborule @ 04/13/11 11:24 PM

Damn, this means for me I'll have less solo time with Madden since NHL would be released shortly after still I assume.

# 11 Exonerated @ 04/14/11 01:22 AM

finally, more time for me to place ncaa.

felt kinda of a waste buying ncaa each year for only a handful of weeks. now we get two handfuls.

# 12 ryan36 @ 04/14/11 11:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Exonerated


	now we get two handfuls.

there's a joke here somewhere I'm sure of it

# 13 Herky @ 04/14/11 12:31 PM

Smart move on Madden's part. For those who think waiting until the end of August is bad, just remember Madden used to come out in November back in the Seaga Genesis/Super Nintendo days.

# 14 illwill10 @ 04/14/11 12:34 PM

I like the move. It gives NCAA more time to get sales. It gives Madden to see the bugs and glitches in NCAA and fix them before they come out. Up-to-date rosters

# 15 Palo20 @ 04/14/11 02:02 PM

I don't like it. I'd rather have my hands on the game before the start of the regular season.

# 16 kjcheezhead @ 04/14/11 02:22 PM

I call BS. By the 2nd week of August, preseason is underway, fans are drafting their fantasy teams and everyone is starving for football that counts. Also, one of the reasons 2k5 was successful was because it released before Madden 05 and people like me chose to buy it to hold us over til Madden released.

The is another reason for the date change. It's looking like the NFL and NFLPA are going to play chicken with each other and won't sign until the regular season is truly threatened. Fans that are angry that the NFL hasn't signed a deal by the second week of August aren't going to be rushing out to buy NFL products like Madden. By waiting til the 30th, it gives more time for a deal to get done and EA wouldn't have to release to an open boycott of their game.

Keeping it from now on just continues to give the developers a full year to work on the game and we'll see if that actually holds true when it's time to release Madden 13.

# 17 AndrewGW88 @ 04/14/11 11:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bukktown


	Do you mean the last week of august or that august 30th is the only day it will ever be released on?

Madden NFL 12 would be releasing on August 30 rather than August 13.

# 18 ODogg @ 04/15/11 03:28 AM

I like this move because it will help NCAA sell more I think and that's a great thing. Plus I always did think the two football games were released too close together. With that being said I'll still probably be keeping an eye out for an early copy of the game.

# 19 Hova57 @ 04/15/11 10:13 AM

I'm just hoping it leaves more time for debugging , and getting patches and tuners together. I like back in the day when madden was released closer to the season. This isn't new they used to release it in late August.

# 20 ODogg @ 04/15/11 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hova57


	I'm just hoping it leaves more time for debugging , and getting patches and tuners together. I like back in the day when madden was released closer to the season. This isn't new they used to release it in late August.

Unfortunately it won't change anything in that regards because the debug/patch time will probably not changed.

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