Following up on yesterday's reports, publisher Electronic Arts has publicly announced that retired Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre will be featured on the cover of Madden NFL 09.

Set to arrive August 12, this year's iteration of the EA Tiburon-developed football franchise will hit PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox, Wii, Nintendo DS and PSP. A PC version will not be released due to the platform's "serious business challenges."

As Favre is the first retired player to be featured on a Madden cover, it is believed that his status will make him exempt from the fabled Madden curse, which is said to result in injuries or a poor seasonal performance for the game's cover athletes.

GameDaily is reporting that the coveted cover shot of EA Tiburon's Madden NFL 09 will be going to recently retired Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre.

The report cites an announcement on the Madden NFL 09 Facebook page which states that the cover athlete is expected to be announced tomorrow, April 25. Favre is scheduled to be on tonight's episode of the Late Show with David Letterman.

GameDaily suggests that, similar to previous years, Favre will make the announcement of the Madden cover during his appearance tonight's Late Show. EA has previously used late-night shows to announce the Madden cover, such as Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince Young's Madden 08 announcement last year on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Should the report prove accurate, an official announcement from EA will most likely be issued tomorrow morning.

EA Sports president Peter Moore confirmed today that Madden NFL 09 will not be released on the PC, citing challenges in bringing sports titles to the platform.

The PC was conspicuously absent in the announcement of Madden 09, which is being brought to virtually every other platform on the market. Writing on his official blog, Moore said that the company was aware that the decision to not develop the latest Madden for the PC would not be a popular one.

"The PC presents some very serious business challenges to us in the sports category, particularly because so many of you all are playing your favorite sports games on the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii," Moore wrote. "We are committed to shipping a limited number of our games on the PC this year, but we've also had to cut a few of our games from the platform."

"We do have ideas for how to revitalize the PC for sports games and the types of games that are best suited to the platform," he added. "And we'll continue to explore those."

Madden NFL 09 is due for release on August 12. A collector's edition, which includes NFL Head Coach 09, will also be released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on the same day.

Electronic Arts announced today that the latest update to its long-running football franchise Madden NFL 09 will be released on August 12.

The publisher also announced that the Madden NFL 09 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition will feature full versions of the game itself as well as NFL Head Coach 09, which ships exclusively with the collector's edition. The two titles are designed to interact with one another, allowing for plays created in Head Coach to be used in Madden 09.

The collector's edition is also said to include "exclusive classic Madden NFL gameplay" and bonus video content. In the past, EA had bundled past iterations of the Madden series in the limited edition of its releases.

Madden NFL 09 will be available for the Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, Wii, Nintendo DS and PSP on the aforementioned August 12 release date. The 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition will ship for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on the same day, priced at $89.99.