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EA SPORTS Kicks off the College Football Season with NCAA Football 2005

Best-selling college football videogame franchise focuses in on home field advantage and is the first EA SPORTS title available on Xbox Live

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – July 14, 2004 – The college football season is underway as NCAA® Football 2005 hits store shelves today, from Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS). Last year, NCAA Football 2004 sold more than one million copies and was the second best-selling football game in North America behind Madden NFL 2004. NCAA Football 2005 marks the first EA SPORTS™ title on Xbox Live™.

For the first time in a football videogame, the game day atmosphere around the field and in the stadium will affect the players on the field in NCAA Football 2005. Visiting teams will have to fight crowd noise when calling plays while home teams can play off of the thunderous support from their fans. Featuring the Top 25 Toughest Places to Play, players can compete in the most elite stadiums across the country including LSU’s “Death Valley,” “The Swamp” at Florida, Michigan’s “Big House,” and Nebraska’s “Sea of Red.”

With the new Match-Up Stick, gamers can track the crowd’s impact on each player, then find and exploit key personnel mismatches. Players can use the Composure Meter to recognize which players are rattled and to determine the players they can count on in critical situations. After big plays, players can celebrate in style with new team-specific fan celebrations like the Gator Chomp and Texas Hook ‘Em Horns. NCAA Football 2005 also features the deepest Dynasty Mode™ to date where players can build up their schools, transform young players into rising stars and monitor program integrity.

Calling the game from the booth for NCAA Football 2005 is the award-winning broadcast team of Brad Nessler, Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso.

NCAA Football 2005 features online gameplay* on PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system and Xbox Live. Players will have access to voice communication, tournaments, ladders and much more. For more information about online (service, play, capabilities, features) for NCAA Football 2005, go to www.ncaafootball05.com. 

NCAA Football 2005, developed by EA Tiburon, is rated “E” (Everyone) by the ESRB and is available on the PlayStation 2 console, the Xbox® video game system from Microsoft and the Nintendo GameCube™.

EA SPORTS is the leading interactive sports software brand in the world. Its top-selling titles and franchises include Madden NFL™ Football, FIFA Soccer, NHL®, NBA LIVE basketball, MVP Baseball™, and NASCAR Thunder™. The EA SPORTS home page is www.easports.com .

About Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world’s leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, EA posted revenues of $2.96 billion for fiscal 2004. The company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers and the Internet. In 2003, EA had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. Electronic Arts markets its products under three brand names: EA SPORTS™, EA GAMES™ and EA SPORTS BIG™. EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA’s products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.

*INTERNET CONNECTION required for online play. PlayStation®2 online play requires Internet Connection, Network Adaptor (for PlayStation 2) and Memory Card (8MB) (for PlayStation 2) (each sold separately). Not all features available with all platforms. See www.easports.com or back of product pack for details.

Electronic Arts, EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS BIG, EA GAMES, John Madden Football and MVP Baseball are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All names, logos, team icons, and mascots associated with the NCAA, universities, bowls and conferences are the exclusive properties of the respective institutions. NCAA is a registered trademark of National Collegiate Athletic Association. NBA, NFL, NASCAR, NHL, MLB and FIFA are trademarks of their respective owners. PlayStation is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Nintendo GameCube is a trademark of Nintendo. Microsoft, Xbox and Xbox Live are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.