Madden NFL 20 Sales Managed A Series First

Madden NFL 20 launched earlier this month, and now publisher Electronic Arts has revealed some statistics that speak to how people are playing the game and how it's selling. That includes a milestone that the series has never seen before, as it's the first in the series where digital sales have overtaken boxed copies.

EA said in a press release that "well over half" of the game's first-week sales were digital; that's a first for the decades-old franchise. It's expected that digital sales would continue to rise in percentage compared to physical, given the gaming industry overall is moving toward digital.

A digital sale is more lucrative for EA, too, but EA still pays store fees on the Xbox Store and PlayStation Store.

EA also said that Madden 20 set a new franchise record for most pre-orders during in its final week before release; however, no pre-order or sales numbers for Madden 20 were released by EA.

Here are some other Madden 20 statistics:

• Over 70% of players tried the new single-player mode, Face of the Franchise, in the first week; that's up 80% compared to the number of people who tried Madden 19's Longshot 2 in its first week.
• The number of games played in Madden 20 in its first week is up by double-digit percentages compared to Madden NFL 19.
• EA says Madden 20 has the "highest positive sentiment ever" on social media, though the company did not say how it recorded this.

In other news, Amazon Prime members can claim one of the greatest NFL players of all time, Jim Brown, in Madden Ultimate Team.