The past three months have been exhausting. This has probably been the most I’ve ever worked between shipping Madden Ultimate Team in January and now Madden NFL 11 in August. The last two weeks have been a lot of overtime making sure the servers are ready for the tens-of-thousands of people who are going to be playing Madden NFL 11 at the same time this up coming week.
If you haven’t tried it yet, pick up the Madden NFL 11 Demo available on PS3 and Xbox 360. Me and a team of two engineers took the existing game and paired down the features from the retail game. It’s the first time we’ve started worked on the demo before submitting the main game to Sony and Microsoft. It’s also the first time we’ve done something other than: two teams and 1 minute quarters. This will give you a flavor of what the retail game is going to be like if you can’t wait until Tuesday.
This weekend I will be heading to New Orleans for the media launch of Madden NFL 11. They are called it “Madden Gras” and it’s open to the public. So, if you are down in New Orleans on Monday. Head down to Fulton Square 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. for some music, food, and of course some Madden football. Then there will be a parade down Bourbon Street at 7:00 p.m. The event will be on USTREAM and I will be on there talking about Madden Ultimate Team.
On Tuesday, I will be flying back and heading directly to the office to help out our Launch Team to make sure our servers are still up and running on the day of release. We monitor them very closely for the first month, but the first night and first weekend are usually the busiest.
So, it’s not over yet, but I can definitely see the finish line.
Hope everyone enjoys Madden NFL 11.
Jason French 