13
Oct
Know your audience ! [Updated]
Let’s get straight to the point: to Europeans (and anyone else who loves football), FIFA 09 is a big deal. FIFA 09 had its biggest franchise debut in the UK last week and the North America release is tomorrow. In all honesty, when Americans hear the word ‘”football”, they think of the NFL and nothing else. They worship Madden games as much as Europeans and the rest of the world’s sports-gamers worship FIFA.
As an informed consumer, I’m always making myself aware of game reviews that help me make informed decisions before I spend good money on a game. FIFA 09 for the PSP has been out since October 3rd, 2008 in the UK. Being a big deal in Europe, I assumed that IGN UK would have jumped on the opportunity review one of the biggest sports titles on that side of the world.
This picture is the FIFA 09 PSP page. This is from IGN UK. Note that the Release Date for the game is tagged as Unreleased. Fair enough but this screen was taken after October 3rd, the game’s release date in the UK. So one of the biggest reviewers of games online does not a review to usher in the release of FIFA 09. Now that the North American release date is here (October 14th, 2008), there is still no review to be seen.
This is the Madden 09 PSP game found at IGN.com. 3 Days after the North American launch of the title (with no indication of a release date in Europe), a review of the game was posted on the UK site. Before I go any further, I have been an avid reader of IGN for years and I’m also a big Madden fan. I can clearly say that Europeans and the NFL (on the whole) are like oil and water, they don’t mix. It boggles my mind the disparity in coverage of the two sports titles. FIFA 09 is dominating in Europe but not getting the proper press coverage that it deserves but Madden, that is much weaker in the given territory, is given more coverage.
With that said, I have purchased my FIFA 09 for the PSP (sans reading any reviews). It would have been nice to read one ahead of time and continue to be an informed gamer. I guess I’ll wait until tomorrow and come up with my own review !
Once Berbatov is in my Manchester United line-up, I’ll be fine.
