One week after Madden 10 was released it was labeled a disappointment compared to its predecessor Madden 9, and it looked to be that way. In its first week Madden 9 sold 720,000 copies on Xbox 360, 437,000 on PS3, and 264,000 on PS2, while Madden 10 only sold 585,000, 374,000, and 139,000 copies on each platform respectively.

That is where the press stopped following, and I began my own research. Using the website http://vgchartz.com I compared each of the games sales for their first eight weeks (end of the quarter). I found that, aside from the opening week, Madden 10 had stronger sales than Madden 9 on the Xbox360 and PS3 platforms each week after the opening week going to October.

The final results were Madden 9 outsold Madden 10 on Xbox360 1,170,00 to 1,171,00 copies, and on PS2 428,000 to 289,000 copies, but on the PS3 platform Madden 10 outsold Madden 9 856,000 copies to 719,000 copies. In total sales Madden 9 beat Madden 10 2,318,000 copies to 2,251,000 copies this quarter. Just 3% fewer copies!

So is Madden 10 a disappointment? Opening week it might not have lived up to expectations, but sales grew stronger in the later weeks. Further more, going into October Madden 10 still had strong sales while Madden 9 dropped off the chart. If I would have calculated October's sales too, Madden 10 sales would actually beat Madden 9 by about 65,000 copies. Maybe Madden 10 wasn't impressive, but the later numbers show that it clearly isn't the disappointment that everyone makes it out to be.