With EA Play and E3 nearing the promotional cycle for the next Madden has gotten underway. There's a lot to be excited about already for Madden NFL 17 including long-overdue work to Special Teams, a new defensive AI system, special moves for ball-carriers, and a "renewed focus on Franchise mode."

In this episode of the Press Row Podcast, Bryan Wiedey, Rich Grisham, and Kat Bailey discuss all the news, the concern over "Tackle Battles", and what is being hoped for with Franchise mode.

On the show this episode:

Bryan Wiedey (@pastapadre), Pastapadre/Sporting News/Hit The Pass
Rich Grisham (@richgrisham), Out of the Park Developments/Hit The Pass
Kat Bailey (@the_katbot), USgamer

Send us your feedback! We love to hear from you. Do it one of these ways:
1) Follow the show on Twitter at @PressRowPodcast and @HitThePass and send us tweets
2) Email the show at PressRowPodcast@Gmail.com

On the show this episode:

Bryan Wiedey (@pastapadre), Pastapadre/Sporting News/Hit The Pass
Rich Grisham (@richgrisham), Out of the Park Developments/Hit The Pass
Ian Cummings (@iantcummings), Third Time

Ian's game Photo Finish Horse Racing can be downloaded for iOS devices through iTunes and for Android devices through Google Play.

Send us your feedback! We love to hear from you. Do it one of these ways:
1) Follow the show on Twitter at @PressRowPodcast and @HitThePass and send us tweets
2) Email the show at PressRowPodcast@Gmail.com

EA Sports has been unable to recover from the attempted reboot of NBA Live as NBA Elite while at the same time seeing their competition flourish to become a juggernaut. It's been six years but the company has yet to produce a quality and compelling product since that fiasco and in the process consumers have lost all confidence in the Live brand. The series simply can't escape its past.

Knowing that a shake-up was necessary EA yesterday confirmed the first report of Live being pushed back to 2017. Despite that acknowledgement uncertainty will continue to surround the series as there's no guarantee it will again see the light of day on consoles. If it makes it back as currently scheduled the form in which it does could be very different than what consumers have become accustomed to with traditional annualized sports games.

On the show this episode:

Bryan Wiedey (@pastapadre), Pastapadre/Sporting News/Hit The Pass
Rich Grisham (@richgrisham), Out of the Park Developments/Hit The Pass
Owen Good (@owengood), Polygon

There's been a heavy focus with recent episodes of the Press RowPodcast on the two big games that released in March, but nowattention turns to some news relating to titles that are still offin the future and a favorite that has just been updated. The triothis week discuss the first features to have been revealed forNHL 17, how EA Sports is considering adding VirtualReality to the next UFC game and what that might mean forothers out before then, and how a basketball mode is the latestsuccess from Rocket League.

On the show this week:

Bryan Wiedey (@pastapadre), Pastapadre/Sporting News/Hit ThePass
Rich Grisham (@richgrisham), Out of the Park Developments/Hit ThePass
Kat Bailey (@The_Katbot),USgamer

In addition to all the other listening platforms the PressRow Podcast can now also be found on Google Play Music!

Send us your feedback! We love to hear from you. Do it one ofthese ways:
1) Follow the show on Twitter at @PressRowPodcast and @HitThePassand send us tweets
2) Email the show at PressRowPodcast@Gmail.com