Implications of John Madden's retirement on the 21-year-old "Madden" gaming series are not yet clear. [UPDATE: EA has weighed in, saying that Madden's retirement won't affect his involvement with the "Madden" games]

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Game publisher EA ran a simulated version of the Super Bowl last week and got within 2 points of predicting the exact score for last night's big game. Read more...

Electronic Arts has been using "Madden NFL" to predict the Super Bowl winner since 2004 and only last year, when the New York Giants pulled off an upset against the New England Patriots, was the long-running series wrong. Read more...

To get ready for Super Bowl XLIII this weekend between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals, NFL players gathered in Tampa, Florida to duke it out in the 15th Annual Xbox Madden Bowl. Read more...

The spotlight wasn't on video games this week as Barack Obama became President, but MTV Multiplayer was still bringing you new topics of discussion every day (except our day off!), and as we sit back and enjoy the weekend, here are the five stories you talked about the most this week on the blog. Read more...

In a span of two days, layoffs have been confirmed at Sony, Microsoft, Electronic Arts and Sega, with some companies cutting thousands of jobs. Read more...

Last week we reported that it could not yet be determined whether "Wii Play" or "Grand Theft Auto IV" was the best-selling game of 2008 in the U.S. But today we finally got the definitive Top 5 2008 list -- and it knocks "GTA" to third place. Read more...

There seems to be a problem when the latest "Madden" sells more than two million copies on PS3, Xbox 360 and PS2 combined in the U.S. in August this year -- and just a little over 100,000 on the Wii according to sales-tracker NPD.

A few years ago, that kind of sales misery on a Nintendo console would be okay. For a long time, sports games on Nintendo consoles just didn't sell.

But given that "Wii Sports" sparked Nintendo's GameCube-to-Wii console resurrection, it seems like sports games can sell on the Wii.

So why isn't EA Sports having an easier go of it on the Wii? I recently asked EA Sports chief Peter Moore to tell me what EA was doing right and wrong with sports games on Nintendo's console.

As always, he was blunt: Read more...

People brag. People talk trash. And rapper Game has been doing a lot of that as he's been hyping his album-promoting $100,000 "Madden" face-off against fellow rapper Bow Wow. My colleague, MTV News hip-hop reporter Shaheem Reid, has been following the hype for the face-off which will finally occur this Friday in L.A.

But I've been skeptical.

Sha's latest story about the face-off quotes Game saying he's the best "Madden" player in the world. Really? I didn't believe it, even though Game gave out his PSN ID (he calls it a Gamertag even though he loves the PS3 enough to have a PS3 necklace) and challenged doubters to look at his record on EASports.com.

I checked his record. It isn't as good as he says it is. He's not top in the world. But he's close.

As of this morning, the Game, aka PSN player "L-A-X" is #6 "Madden NFL 09" player in the world of EA Sports.com, with a record of 174 wins, 31 losses and five games that he didn't finish. Note that last night, when Sha ran the story, Game's record was 171-30, so he managed a 3-1 record in the last 16 hours.

Not bad!

Rap stars Bow Wow and Game have exchanged YouTube challenges to battle each other in "Madden," live, with $100,000 at stake.

Will they do it? I'm not sure. Our hip-hop reporter Shaheem Reid reports on the challenge, censoring the completely not-safe-for-work epithets used in the clips.

Now why does Bow Wow need to fly Game to a shared location to play in person? Why can't they just play over Xbox Live or PSN?

Read Sha's report at MTVNews.com: Game Vs. Bow Wow: No Rap Beef Here, Just A 'Madden 09' Face-Off

And, if the kids aren't around, watch Game's M-rated response here, notable for two reasons:

1. He wears the only PS3 necklace I've ever seen.
2. He offers to sell copies of "Madden NFL 09," shrink-wrapped, for a pretty good price!