A story on Gamespot about Madden 06 stated “this year’s edition of the gridiron game is proving to be the most successful in the franchise’s sixteen years” with a first week sales tally at 1.7 million copies.

Todd Sitrin, EA’s vice president of marketing, wasn’t bashful about doing a little celebratory dancing in the end zone. “Every year we launch our product, and the types of sales numbers [Madden NFL 06 has achieved] is an indication of the level of consumer demand and the great positive reaction to this year’s game.”

But I’d like to put the spin into perspective. In it’s first week last year, Madden 2005 sold nearly 1.35 million copies. This year’s numbers are indeed an improvement at about 400,000 additional copies.

However, the exclusivity agreement with the NFL makes Madden the only player this season. In comparison, last year’s NFL 2K5 sold over 790,000 in it’s first week of release. That makes the total user base of last year’s main football titles at over 2,140,000 copies.

That’s a reduction of over 440,000 in the total number of virtual gridiron warriors this year. In percentage terms, a reduction of over 20% for the total user base for football titles. And that doesn’t take into consideration the nubmer of GameDay or Blitz titles sold.

It’s assumed that EA wouldn’t capture 100% of the competitors’ audience. However, it’s surprising so many gamers opted out of this season altogether. So much for a “dynasty”…