It's that time of year again, when we shed off the remnants of last year and look ahead towards things to come. Out with the old, in with the new! In the case of EA Sports games, that means the annual culling of servers from older sports titles. If you prefer the 2011 iterations of games like Madden NFL and FIFA Soccer 11, you have just over one precious week to get in your online game time.

Read more: Also impacting NHL, NBA Live, NBA Jam »

Electronic Arts is being sued for tens of millions of dollars by the original creator of the Madden football series, reports Reuters.

Creator Robin Antonick claims he's owed him almost two decades of unpaid royalties from the American football series. He says that the modern all-singing, all-dancing games are still based upon his 8-bit original John Madden Football, which was released for for Apple II, Commodore 64 and MS DOS in 1988. Read more »

Shacknews receives a slew of new screenshots and trailers for upcoming games everyday. The most anticipated titles receive their own post, because we know you're eager to see that content. For the rest, we have the Daily Filter, a place to feature all of the media we add to our enormous database on a daily basis.

Today's Filter is another doozy with media for The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Anarchy Reigns, Dead Space 2, MotoGP 10/11, the Facebook game Dragon Age Legends, a Superbowl prediction video featuring Madden NFL 11, Defenders of Ardania, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Classic Trilogy HD, APB: Reloaded, Realm of the Titans, Heroes of Newerth, Forsaken World, The UnderGarden on PS3, Pokemon Black, and Pokemon White. Read more »

Although some companies achieved sales milestones in 2010, including Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops and Microsoft's Xbox 360 console, sales throughout the industry were down "as much as 1 percent when compared to 2009," the NPD Group estimates.

Data is still preliminary for "total consumer spend on gaming content via all monetization methods, including new physical video and PC games, used games, game rentals, subscriptions, digital full-game downloads, social network games, downloadable content, and mobile game apps," however, the market research company puts complete spending between $15.4 and $15.6 billion. Read more »

Though Funcom self-published its last two MMOs, Age of Conan and Anarchy Online, the developer today announced that it'll co-publish The Secret World with EA Partners.

"The experience and the knowledge that Electronic Arts brings to the table will be instrumental in allowing us to realize the full potential of 'The Secret World,'" Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas said in the announcement. Read more »

Although they will no longer provide any of those pesky "numbers" we all like so much, the NPD Group has released its report for the month of September. As Microsoft announced earlier, Halo: Reach topped the charts, selling 3.3 million units in its first month of sale.

Capcom's Dead Rising 2 took the third spot across three platforms, despite launching on September 28 in North America. EA Sports saw three of its titles land in September's top ten, with Madden NFL 11, NHL 11, and FIFA Soccer 11 invading the month's top five sellers. New exclusive titles Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep for the PSP and Nintendo Wii's Metroid: Other M also had strong debuts. Note: The NPD Group no longer lists software as individual platforms. Sales for all platforms will now be combined when listed in the "Top Ten" and no figures will be released to the public from the NPD Group. Read more »

Those of you hoping to enjoy up-to-date rosters in Madden NFL 11 will want to boot-up and snag the game's first roster update, which packs in over 500 changes. The roster updates are free provided you have an Online Pass, which is included in new copies of the game and available for $10 if purchased used.

The changes include releasing players from teams following post-season cuts, adding new players, changing stats and depth charts, and benching troublemakers like Ben Roethlisberger. Read more »

Last month, the Xbox 360 sold more hardware than any other system for the first time since 2007. Microsoft managed to pull it off again posting a second straight month of topping the hardware sales, though overall sales were down month to month. The PlayStation 3 was the only console to show gains versus the prior month, but has still not returned to its June sales of 304.8K units. The Wii posted its lowest hardware sales since launch.

U.S. Hardware Sales - reporting August 1 to August 28, 2010 Read more »

With less than a week to go before the start of the NFL football season, EA SPORTS has revealed the results of a full-season simulation conducted using its latest foray on the gridiron, Madden NFL 11. The results predict "divisional winners, league leaders and individual award winners for the 2010 NFL season."

Green Bay Packers' QB Aaron Rodgers grabbed the virtual MVP and Offensive Player of the Year awards by leading the Packers to a 12-4 regular-season finish, while the Baltimore's OLB Terrell Suggs helped the Ravens secure home-field advantage for the AFC. The Indianapolis Colt's gave the Ravens a run for their money, however, with both teams achieving a 13-3 record for the season. The Ravens were able to secure home-field advantage due to a better divisional record. The Minnesota Vikings also tied the Packers 12-4 season record, though the Packers ended up with a better divisional record. Read more »

EA Sports has announced that Madden NFL 11's new 'GameFlow' feature has been used by 85% of folks playing the game. EA also projects (internally) that the latest game in the Madden franchise has seen a 5% sales growth year-over-year across all platforms for the month of August.

'GameFlow,' which EA calls "a complete game-changer," shortens overall game length and streamlines the play-calling process in an effort to make the game more friendly to newcomers. Read more »

Before Garnett and Brian head to Texas for QuakeCon, they sit down with Jeff to record this week's show. It's a broad swath of gaming in Whatcha' Been Playin? ranging from more Madden and Starcraft 2 to Arc Rise Fantasia and even Minecraft. Your thoughts from our conversation last week about the viability of female characters leads the Warning before the subject turns to the line between fun, engaging game design and frustrating compulsion to beat a game. And in the front page there's news of new Borderlands DLC and the celebrity voice cast in Fallout New Vegas. Due to travel we recorded early this week but we'll have Jeff's reaction to Bioshock Infinite and look at July's sales figures next week.

Weekend Confirmed Ep. 21 - 08/13/2010 Read more »

Annual updates to sports video game franchises like Madden come with a non-negotiable set of baseline expectations. They of course need to include the latest rosters, with players updated to reflect their projected performance for the coming season, improve their simulation of the sport being played, and look better than ever doing it. Madden NFL 11 ticks-off those boxes with its regular efficiency.

Read more »

It's anything but a lazy midsummer's show as a Whatcha' Been Playin? packed with heavy-hitters including Civilization 5, Starcraft 2, and Madden 11 gets Garnett, Brian, and Jeff off to rocking start. There's so much in there that Cannata-ford a New Game spills over to the third segment before giving way to the Warning. Your thoughts on why developers try and compete with the likes of Halo and Modern Warfare for multiplayer shooters starts the conversation which also includes choosing the right place to sit when gaming, and a brief look at the issues raised this week on Gamasutra concerning whether focus testing resulted in Activision abandoning female action heroes. News from EA's investor reports hits the Front Page along with one of our favorite games, Torchlight, getting the sequel we all hoped for announced.

Weekend Confirmed Ep. 20 - 08/06/2010 Read more »

With its August 10 release date only days away, an early copy of Madden NFL 11 arrived on my desk right before this past weekend. Already pumped for the season from the training camp buzz, I couldn't wait to get in and see how my Cowboys fare this time around. While the review must wait until next Monday, after getting in quite a few games I can start putting together an answer to the annual, "so what's new this year?" question.

Read more »

Shacknews receives a slew of new screenshots and trailers for upcoming games everyday. The most anticipated titles receive their own post, because we know you're eager to see that content. For the rest, we have the Daily Filter, a place to feature all of the media we add to our enormous database on a daily basis.

Today's Daily Filter includes video of the Street Fighter X Tekken and Mega Man Universe panels at Comic-Con 2010. We've also added a behind-the-scenes video for Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days along with three other trailers for the upcoming sequel. Activision takes gamers behind-the-scenes of a recent music re-recording session for Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, Hothead Games takes a unique (and hilarious) approach to "Dev Diaries" in a video for Deathspank and we take a look at the NFC North in a new "sizzle" video for Madden NFL 11. If that's not enough content for you, we've also added new screens for Dungeon Siege 3 and media for Bakugan Battle Brawlers: Defenders of the Core, Mushroom Age and Shogun 2: Total War. Read more »