Electronic Arts saw a dip of about 23% in median playtime for Madden NFL 25 on PlayStation and Xbox from prior editions of the game.
In every release from Madden NFL 21 through Madden NFL 24, the median PlayStation user spent at least 25 hours playing the video game, while the median Xbox user spent at least 13 hours on it, according to data provided to Sportico by Video Game Insights. For Madden NFL 25, that number plunged to 19.9 and 10 hours, respectively, the data research firm said.
Xbox median playtime is typically lower than PlayStation, because Xbox users can download Madden at no extra cost through a Game Pass subscription each February, incentivizing people to try out the game without monetary investment. PlayStation has a larger user base overall.
A VGI analyst said the Madden NFL 25 median playtime figures are unlikely to grow significantly after Thursday’s release of the newest title in the series, Madden NFL 26.
As with all editions of the game, average playtime for Madden NFL 25 was much higher than median playtime—on Xbox, it was 60 hours. But this metric was also way down year-over-year, falling double-digits from 77 hours compared with the preceding edition.
Some sports fans likely split their time between Madden NFL 25 and EA Sports College Football 25 last year. The NCAA game hadn’t been produced in a decade because of legal challenges regarding NIL. Pent-up demand helped make it a bestseller. It is unclear exactly how much the College Football series cannibalized Madden’s median playtime—and the extent other factors, such as the pull of competing entertainment options, weighed on user activity.
EA did not respond to a request for comment.
Total full-game sales between football games are expected to see an “eight-point headwind year over year for the quarter, with the ecosystem returning to growth in the second half of the fiscal year,” EA CEO Andrew Wilson said on the company’s Q1 earnings call.
In addition to the drop in median playtime on consoles for Madden, a key property, the company faces a slowdown in growth of microtransactions revenue across its games.
This fall, though, brings one of EA’s deepest slate of releases in years, at a time when the video game sector as a whole is trending upward.