The newest incarnation of the venerable "Madden NFL" series has gone gold and will make it's ship date of August 9th and will hit stores August 12th. It is the first EA game to make use of XboxLIVE. One of the best selling video game franchises ever with over 37 million sold, the newest "Madden" is expected to sell around 5 million copies this year. A side story to this is that Sega and ESPN's "NFL 2K5" is trying to put a dent in the "Madden" juggernaut by coming out earlier than "Madden" and only costing $19.95.