I had heard this before, but I never saw any confirmation until I read the article in PSM. So that means that EA will switch off the Madden 2003 servers when Madden 2004 comes out? It makes fiscal sense, of course, since they aren't getting any more money from the Madden 2003 players. This gives them less incentive, however, to make a significantly better game next year. In previous years, I would skip a few Madden games because the game itself had very little upgrade except for roster changes.

Anyone have any idea if Sega will do this too? Did the Dreamcast servers for the older games go down when the new ones came out? At least the NFL 2K series seems to push the Madden developers forward... though their sizeable lead in sales might make them more lax next year.

it says this right on the madden 2003 box or booklet. I remember getting the game and that was the first thing I noticed. Not too big a deal since most of us will upgrade anyhow.

No idea about Sega. EA definately won't support online play past this season, 989 (NFL Gameday 2003) definately will "forever".

who wants to play gameday though? It really makes since to do it this way, if they tried to support online forever for each copy, they would have so much server overhead it wouldn't be funny. Then they would have to charge us to play online.

As long as they don't start charging to go online, I have no problem with upgrading my copy each year. I'd look at that $50 I spend on the game as the online fee for the year.