Midnight Means Madden Mania

With the clock ticking down to the midnight release of the 2009 edition of EA Sports’ mega-popular "Madden NFL" video game, millions of eager gamers are excited to dig in—but not as excited as the manufacturer, which has made $2.4 billion from the franchise since 1995. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on the anticipation on both sides.

To celebrate its 20-year-old cash cow, EA Sports is planning a 6,000-person festival featuring live music, three-dimensional NFL stars, and—most important—lots of Xboxes. "If you're selling five to six million copies of the same title every year, you've just won the Super Bowl, World Series and Stanley Cup combined,” says an editor at Game Informer magazine. (More Madden NFL 09 stories.)