EA Sports 09 line tops 500 million online games played

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpotPosted Apr 22, 2009 2:38 pm PT

Publisher touts latest milestone as nearly tripling the online sessions played in the prior year's collection of athletic sims.

A regular NFL season lasts a scant 16 games. NHL and NBA teams play a bit more frequently, with a guaranteed 82 games every year. Compared to those seasons, MLB campaigns are relatively epic, lasting 162 games.

Madden NFL 09 attracted more than 2.4 million registered users.

But they're all dwarfed by the EA Sports season, which this week is reaching a major milestone, according to the sports game publisher. Combining the entire lineup of EA's 09 sports games since last June, half a billion online matches have been played as of this week, with the publisher breaking that figure down to a daily average of 2.2 million.

The online gaming feature is catching on according to the publisher, which said it has seen a jump of 175 percent above and beyond what the 08 lineup of titles managed. During an MI6 keynote address earlier this month, EA Sports president Peter Moore talked about the brand's attempts to bolster online play with the release of daily content updates and satellite products to capitalize on postseason excitement.

The publisher also released a handful of other factoids pointing out the success of its sports business. There are six different EA Sports games with at least 500,000 registered online users, led by Madden NFL 09 and FIFA 09 with at least 2.4 million apiece. Additionally, users have spent a cumulative 4 billion minutes playing EA Sports titles since last summer (more than 7,600 years of game time), averaging about 35 years of collective gaming every day.

Impressive as those numbers are for an entire lineup of games, they are similarly put to shame by just one game. Last month, Bungie revealed that more than 1 billion online sessions of Halo 3 had been played since September 2007, with a cumulative playtime of 64,000 years sunk into the first-person shooter.

28 Comments

  • bizuit

    Posted May 28, 2009 8:22 pm PT

    Amir29, EA doesnt make a baseball game anymore

  • bizuit

    Posted May 28, 2009 8:20 pm PT

    They could fix one thing and only one thing for NHL10 and it would still be great, fix the freezing issue when loading games! I've played tons of Halo 3 games online since the first day and it has never frozen up on me once and NHL 09 will freezes multiple times a night and its always when its 5 on 5 or 6 on 6 game..just really annoying

  • Quinn144

    Posted May 28, 2009 12:52 pm PT

    I LOVE HALO 3! I LOVE MY XBOX 360!

  • bcrenton

    Posted Apr 23, 2009 3:30 pm PT

    My 2 cents... EA's implementation of full 6 on 6 hockey and 10 on 10 soccer were extremely important on the future of sports games. I am not a Madden/NCAA guy, but I, for one, do not see advancements in either of those games that will ever come close to what EA has done with their NHL and FIFA franchises.

    Madden/NCAA are such a regional success that there is no real incentive for EA to improve on their product because the market is so limited. They just wax on/wax off each year and people will buy it.

    NHL and FIFA fans, though, now that the bar has been raised so high... are, probably like me, foaming at the mouth to see what EA can do for next year's installment. (though, personally, I would be completely happy with them fixing the plethora of minor hiccups that the NHL09 version suffers from... maybe a physics upgrade too... as I didn't know EVERY pass always lands on a stick!)

  • ck666

    Posted Apr 23, 2009 12:55 pm PT

    NHL 09 is absolutely incredible.
    Best sports game ever made, period.

  • dstv

    Posted Apr 23, 2009 11:42 am PT

    almost as much as halo

  • Sparty_On

    Posted Apr 23, 2009 11:33 am PT

    I always like Madden it's awesome game every year it gets better & better like NCAA Football as well. Those that say EA is the same game every year your wrong.

  • sonic_nhl

    Posted Apr 23, 2009 10:06 am PT

    What? no love for NHL 09? give me a break...

  • Amir29

    Posted Apr 23, 2009 9:57 am PT

    I'm not fond of EA's way of doing business, but the development teams under their flag are simply some of the best. We all complain about how similar sports games are every year. But, let's not forget that one year is not a lot of time to develop and release a title. But in 2009, the additions to all of their sports titles have been commendable to say the least. MLB 09's AI and attention to detail is unmatched. Madden 09 has the least groth, but is still the best installment for all current gen systems. FIFA09's roster and AI improvements and amazing online gameplay mechanics are mind boggling. NHL 09's gameplay tweaks really change the face of video game hockey. All in all, I would say that the devs under EA have really done an incredible job this year with that short deadline they have. It's ashame that all of these devs reside under the EA flag though. I would have liked to see them face stronger competition to see what happens.

  • killerwsyan

    Posted Apr 23, 2009 8:10 am PT

    fifa 09 was the best of ea sports

  • Darkside7972

    Posted Apr 23, 2009 2:45 am PT

    And only 450 million of them were never finished due to ragequits.

  • im_back

    Posted Apr 22, 2009 11:06 pm PT

    Wow... that is a crazy amount of football being played every day! 35 years collectively per day is a number beyond understanding. Don't even get me started on halo... 64 000 years.... My word, that works out to about 113 years per day! That is almost longer then the life span of the oldest person who ever lived (122 years!) flip, thats a lot to T-bagging :p

  • tenlong

    Posted Apr 22, 2009 10:10 pm PT

    ea sells the same games over and over i m scared to buy one of ea'sgames fearing being ripoffed

  • nurse_tsunami

    Posted Apr 22, 2009 9:11 pm PT

    I wonder how much more games have been played offline for those titles. I am hoping that this year's Madden is worth purchasing.

  • maverick_76

    Posted Apr 22, 2009 7:06 pm PT

    We can't just say no life anymore, more like no life 6,400 times at least, and that is if everyone lived to 100!!

  • greenbuk75

    Posted Apr 22, 2009 6:42 pm PT

    i would have to get 2 mlb games every year tho haha the show has burst onto the scene=p

  • greenbuk75

    Posted Apr 22, 2009 6:41 pm PT

    @ karn3n YESSSSSS

  • karn3n

    Posted Apr 22, 2009 5:52 pm PT

    Just imagine how many games would be played if they still made MVP Baseball...


    I still play MVP 06 NCAA Baseball!

    BRING BACK MVP AS PS3 EXCLUSIVE! =)

  • shakensparco

    Posted Apr 22, 2009 5:40 pm PT

    Funny how Halo can top so many games at the same time.... but sports players only play one or two sports games I guess so its all divided.

  • soadfan8182

    Posted Apr 22, 2009 5:12 pm PT

    fifa 09 and nhl 09 are the real games

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