EA Obtains An Exclusive NFL License

Electronic Arts had to lower the price prematurely for Madden NFL 2005 because of the much cheaper ESPN NFL 2K5 game from Sega. EA may not have to worry about the competition for the next several years. EA has purchased exclusive rights for the NFL license for all future portable and console games (excluding wireless and Internet games). Electronic Arts retains the exclusive license for five years. In other words, the only officially licensed pro football game for the next half decade will be Madden Football. Sega will obviously being hurting from the NFL's decision to grant EA an exclusive license rumored to cost EA an outstanding $1 billion!

In other news, Sony has nearly sold out of their initial Japanese shipment (200,000) of PSP units on December 12. For PC news, the MMORPG The Matrix Online has been delayed a second time. The first delay pushed the game's release to January 2005. Now, The Matrix Online has a spring 2005 release date.