EA Sports Announces 500 Million Online Matches

EA Sports says users have played 500 million online matches in games under its label since June 2008 -- and that gamers currently play over 2.2 million EA Sports games online every day. EA Sports says this is a 175 percent increase in online play over last year, which "highlights the radical shift that we've helped pioneer in the industry," according to label president Peter Moore. According to the company's announcement, the March 19 launch of FIFA 09's downloadable Ultimate Team mode, which lets players construct dream teams to play against one another online, has "sparked the highest online activity for FIFA 09 in the lifecycle of the product." Madden NFL 09 and FIFA 09 each have 2.4 million registered online users -- and four other titles also have registrations over 500,000. EA Sports adds that gamers have logged 4 billion gameplay minutes collectively since last summer. "EA Sports is committed to providing personal access to the emotion of sports by continuing to create immersive online features, compelling new downloadable content and daily real-time stats updates," says Moore.