Madden NFL 21's Launch Month Was Significantly Bigger Than Madden 20's

The NPD Group has published their financial findings for the month of August, and things are looking good for Madden 21. The latest game in EA's sports sim series has had a bigger launch than that of its predecessor in 2019.

"Madden NFL 21 was the best-selling title of August," writes the NPD Group's Mat Piscatella on Twitter. "With double-digital dollar sales growth when compared to the release month of Madden NFL 20." Madden NFL 20's release month in 2019 was also August, the release month in which Madden games have launched since times immemorial.

So, it definitely sounds like Madden NFL 21 has had a successful launch month, all things considered. This comes as something of a surprise to me, especially after reading Kat's middling review of Madden NFL 21 last month, in which she highlighted an "abnormal number of bugs" being just one reason the latest entry wasn't a step forward for the franchise.

Let's see if EA has these bugs ironed out by the time Madden NFL 21 launches on next-gen consoles later this year. EA previously announced that Madden NFL 21 would be arriving on both the Xbox Series X/S and PS5 at some point later this year, after Microsoft's consoles launch on November 10. Although the next-gen upgrade will be free for both console systems, EA stated that users will need to purchase the game on current consoles by December 31, 2020, and redeem their next-gen upgrade by March 31, 2021.