John Madden Football

John Madden Football
Publisher: Electronic Arts Developer: Park Place Productions System(s): Sega Mega Drive ROM Size: 512kB Genre: Sports Number of Players: 1-2 Release Date RRP Code US 1990 $49.95  ? EU 1990-12 £39.99 E036SMXI BR 1990 $?  ?

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John Madden Football, known as John Madden American Football in Europe, is an American football game developed by Park Place Productions and published by Electronic Arts. It is the second in the long line of Madden titles, which have been released annually since the creation of this game. The previous game, also called John Madden Football was released in 1988 and is largely unrelated to this one, aside from the similar themes.

John Madden Football for the Mega Drive can be seen as "Madden '91", being followed by John Madden Football '92, '93, '94 and so on. Every game has been named after John Madden, American football player, coach and commentator.

Electronic Arts reverse engineered the Sega Mega Drive in the hopes of selling the game in North America without having to pay royalties ($8-$10 USD per cartridge) to Sega. A proposal was then made to Sega that the fee be reduced to $2, with the overall fee not exceeding $2 million USD. Sega agreed due to fears EA would sell the information to other companies, and the process would reportedly save EA $35 million in the next three years.

John Madden Football was an enormous success for EA. Sega originally approached the company to sell it as Joe Montana Football, as their game was due to miss the 1990 Christmas shopping season, but were refused, instead being given a watered down engine for that game (which still proved successful). The first John Madden Football game is seen as an industry game changer - one of the first steps to take back market share from Nintendo in North America.

Elsewhere in the world, John Madden Football and its sequels have been less successful as the sport does not tend to resonate outside of the US, however EA has applied the annual release system to other sports titles, namely NHL, FIFA, PGA Tour Golf and NBA Live.

Physical Scans

	93	Sega Retro Average
		Based on 2 reviews
Publication Score Source ACE 90 №41 Computer & Video Games 95 №110

Mega Drive Version

Mega Drive, US
Cover
Cart

Mega Drive, EU
Cover

Mega Drive, BR
Cover

Electronic Arts sports games for Sega systems

American Football

John Madden Football (1990) | John Madden Football '92 (1991) | John Madden Football '93 (1992) | John Madden Football: Championship Edition (1992) | Mutant League Football (1993) | Madden NFL '94 (1993) | Bill Walsh College Football (1993) | Bill Walsh College Football '95 (1994) | Madden NFL '95 (1994) | Madden NFL 96 (1995) | College Football USA 96 (1995) | Madden NFL 97 (1996) | College Football USA 97 (1996) | Madden NFL 98 (1997)

Baseball

Tony La Russa Baseball (1993) | MLBPA Baseball (1994) | La Russa Baseball 95 (1994) | Triple Play 96 (1995) | Triple Play: Gold Edition (1996)

Basketball

Lakers versus Celtics and the NBA Playoffs (1990) | Bulls vs Lakers and the NBA Playoffs (1991) | Jordan vs Bird (1992) | Team USA Basketball (1992) | Bulls versus Blazers and the NBA Playoffs (1993) | NBA Showdown '94 (1994) | NBA Live 95 (1994) | NBA Live 96 (1995) | Coach K College Basketball (1995) | NBA Live 97 (1996) | NBA Live 98 (1997)

Golf

Zany Golf (1990) | PGA Tour Golf (1990) | PGA Tour Golf II (1992) | PGA Tour Golf III (1994) | PGA European Tour (1994) | PGA Tour 96 (1995) | PGA Tour 97 (1996)

Ice Hockey

NHL Hockey (Mega Drive) (1991) | NHLPA Hockey '93 (1992) | NHL Hockey '94 (1993) | Elitserien 95 (1994) | Mutant League Hockey (1994) | NHL 95 (1994) | Elitserien 96 (1995) | NHL 96 (1995) | NHL Hockey (Game Gear) (1995) | NHL 97 (1996) | NHL 98 (1997)

Racing

Mario Andretti Racing (1994) | Andretti Racing (1996) | NASCAR 98 (1997)

Rugby

Rugby World Cup 1995 (1994) | Australian Rugby League (1995)

Soccer

FIFA International Soccer (1993) | FIFA Soccer 95 (1994) | FIFA Soccer 96 (1995) | FIFA Soccer 97 (1996) | FIFA 98: Road to World Cup (1997)

Misc.

EA Sports Double Header (1992) | IMG International Tour Tennis (1994) | Toughman Contest (1994)