Lets hope not. Much can be learned by the mistakes of the GameDay and Fever franchises. Conversely, much can be gained by looking at what they did well.

In the case of Sony's GameDay 2004 product, there's a lesson here in innovation. More accurately, there's a lesson to be learned from its LACK of innovation. The GameDay series has been going downhill since GameDay 1999 on PS1. The series has always done very little from year to year. Sony was hungry back in 1995 and 1996, when GameDay and GameDay 97 spooked EA into not releasing Madden 96 on PS1 due to quality issues. In 1998, GameDay was the first console game with fully 3D player models, EA had to follow suit with 3D players the following year. From then on, the GameDay series barely evolved. It became known for glaring flaws that should have been easily detected by quasi-competent game testers. Quality suffered. So did sales. Sadly for Sony, the GameDay series stands as a monument representing what NOT to do when it comes to building a successful sports game franchise. In fairness, GameDay 2004 had the best online front-end of any online console football game to date. Its online component acted as a personalized smorgasbord of forums, tournaments, had its own proprietary email, and it also gave updated real pro and college sports scores going on in the real world. If anything, the GameDay 2004 game itself was so bad that it betrayed the sweet, innovative online component that was built for people to play it on. That said, both Sega/ESPN and Electronics Arts could learn alot from looking over the Sony/989 online features and "borrowing" some of it, if not all of it.

However, to me- one the biggest tragedies of the year is the cancellation of the steadily improving NFL Fever series for 2005. Its a game I rewarded the "most improved" award in my column from a few months back. In short, the Fever product showed the most dramatic up-swing from 2003 to 2004. Saying that EA and ESPN should borrow some of Fever 2004's features is like saying that JFK should have avoided riding in convertibles. Read N' Lead passing was the most innovative feature of any football game from last year. Easy to learn, but hard to master- it put you in the game as the QB. Unlike Madden, where the AI controls about 85% of the pass location based on the pre-determined route, Fever 2004 let you call up your receiving icons and aim the ball (using a cursor) to an open part of the field- or even the open shoulder of a wideout's body. Also, after selecting your receiver, by hitting a certain button, you could put the passing cursor in an open part of the field, and direct your wideout to go there on the fly (even though his route didn't call for him to go there.) And then, you press the pass button and try to hit him in-stride. My only beef with the "Read N' Lead" system was how difficult it was to play with Madden's rather archaic passing scheme after playing Fever. Fever 2004 producer Ric Neil really set a standard for passing realism in a video game with Fever 2004. It made the player feel REALLY responsible for good passing plays, because YOU are in control of a good or bad pass. It also made you feel worse for your own INTs, because you couldn't say "I didn't mean to throw that there!" Trust me when I say that I saved lots of replays of brilliant "read n' leads" I made on Fever 2004. (And trust me when I say that I threw my share of stupid INTS too!) ESPN's "Maximum Passing" seemingly cuts a "happy-medium" between Madden's "Strict" passing mechanics, and Fever's "Read N' Lead", but it could use some tweaks as well.

Fever 2004 also led the class in pre-snap audibles on both the offensive and defensive side of the ball. If you thought "Playmaker" was good, trust me when I tell you that Fever had that same functionality and more. Heck, on run plays you could audible your HB and FB to run towards any hole you want- completely editing a run play on the fly. If the OLBs are stacking outside your OTs, you could call your sweep to run between the center and guard hole instead, and have your FB lead you there. You name it- you could do it. The same goes for defense. You could set certain "awareness" pre play- like "Stack run inside" "Play run outside" "cover sidelines" "cover inside pass routes" and much more- like hot blitzes, hot covers, you name it. (From what I'm reading about Madden 2005, it seems like EA took the hint to heart, and has actually copied some of this.)

But there's more....

Fever 2004 had the best "create a play" options seen in console sports. Not only could you create both offensive and defensive plays, you could save them to the XBOX hard-drive, and you could carry those plays with you online. So, lets say you have some joker who keeps running the same high-percentage play. Well, you could go into your interface and create a custom defense as a "kill" for that play, and set it as a quick audible. The same goes if someone creates a custom D that is giving your stock plays some trouble. You can make your own offensive set that can counter it. This made the game more like an advanced coaching sim than anything available on consoles. So far as I can tell, EA and ESPN are still lagging behind some of these advanced features.

Hopefully, EA and ESPN will see some of the value in some of the positive features that its competition showed up with last year. If they do, we can only gain from them learning from both the mistakes AND innovations of Fever, and to a MUCH lesser extent- Sony's GameDay online front-end. If they do, we all stand to gain even more from our virtual football experiences.

See you on the virtual gridiron.