EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to imitate real- life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network" (EASN) with pictures or endorsements with real commentators such as John Madden, it soon grew up to become a sub- label on its own, releasing game series such as FIFA, NHL and Madden NFL-
Most games under this brand are developed by EA Canada, the studio of Electronic Arts in Burnaby, British Columbia, as well as EA Blackbox, Vancouver, British Columbia and EA Tiburon in Maitland, Florida. The main rival to EA Sports is 2K Sports. Notably, both companies compete over the realm of NBA games. Konami is its rival in association football games.
EA Sports inherits its motto "It's in the game" from the parent company, Electronic Arts. It was voiced by journalist Andrew Anthony.
Unlike some other sports game companies, EA Sports has no special ties to a single platform, which means that all games are released for the best- selling active platforms, sometimes long after most of the other companies abandon them. For example, FIFA 98, Madden NFL 98, NBA Live 98, and NHL 98 were released for the Sega Genesis and the Super NES throughout 1997 ; Madden NFL 2005 and FIFA 2005 had PlayStation released in 2004 ( FIFA 2005 was also the last PlayStation title to be released); and NCAA Football 08 had an Xbox released in 2007. Madden NFL 08 also had Xbox and Nintendo GameCube releases in 2007, and was the final title released for the GameCube, with Madden NFL 09 following as the final Xbox title.
