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Free NFL Sunday Ticket Online & Mobile Included with Amazon Exclusive Madden 25 Anniversary Edition for PS3 and XBox 360

If you’re a fan of the Madden video game series and want to experience the NFL Sunday Ticket online without a DirecTV subscription, Amazon has a pretty sweet exclusive deal for you.

UPDATE (9/6/2013): It appears this deal is now SOLD OUT. Both XBox 360 and PS3 editions of the game are now listed on Amazon as “Currently unavailable.”

For a hundred bucks, you can pre-order a copy of Madden 25 Anniversary Edition for Xbox 360 or PS3 on Amazon.com and get access to a 2013 regular season trial of NFL Sunday Ticket on computer, tablet and mobile devices. That’s just $40 more than the standard pre-order price of Madden. The normal standalone price for the NFL Sunday Ticket digital package is $250. This also includes access to the Red Zone Channel.

If you aren’t a DirecTV customer but wish to subscribe, you will receive a promo code entitling them to $10 off per month for their first year of service and one year of NFL Sunday Ticket Max at no additional charge. (NFL Sunday Ticket Max is essentially the online & mobile version of NFL Sunday Ticket for DirecTV subscribers).

Normally, the online version of NFL Sunday ticket is only for those that can’t get DirecTV at their homes, but according to kotaku.com that isn’t the case for this promotion.

But even if you live in an area with DirecTV access, and choose not to subscribe, you may still use the code to watch Sunday Ticket games on your computer, tablet or other mobile device. You don’t have to subscribe to DirectTV.

That comes from Anthony Stevenson, Madden‘s director of marketing, clearing up some confusion from the official announcement yesterday. “With this offer you don’t need to be a directv subscriber,” he said today via Twitter. “You can access Sunday Ticket digitally.”

That’s an important detail because it make this deal available to everyone regardless of where they live and doesn’t lock you into a long term subscription.

It should also be noted that this is a limited offer that is available to just 50,000 copies per platform according to Joystiq.  A bit of quick research revealed that Madden typically sells between 3-5 million copies and over 1 million of those are either pre-orders or purchased in the first week. Even if those numbers are on the high side, and if you take into consideration that not everyone will want to drop the extra cash for the Anniversary Edition, it would seem that you wouldn’t want to wait too long to jump on this deal. It’s also likely to pull in folks who may not have otherwise order Madden 25 (like me).

UPDATE (5/27/2013): According to vgchartz.com, Madden 13 had just under 220,000 pre-orders the week before it’s release.

What About the PS3?

As some of you may be aware, NFL Sunday Ticket has been available on the PS3 for the last couple years. Unfortunately, the NFL Sunday Ticket on PS3 isn’t included in this deal according to the easports.com FAQ page.

Overview

I subscribed to the NFL Sunday Ticket online last year and posted my full review of the NFL Sunday Ticket Online experience. In a nutshell, I found it to be excellent on PS3 (which isn’t part of this deal), excellent on the iPad 2, and rather poor on the computer browser. Perhaps they will improve this season, but based on my experience, and some of the reviews from previous years, you might find the video quality via the computer browser disappointing. Frankly, unless you own a PS3 or can connect your iPad to your TV, I thought $250 was just too expensive for the product.

However, if you were already planning on pre-ordering Madden 25, an additional $40 for NFL Sunday Ticket online seems like a great deal. I had not intended to purchase Madden this year (I usually only pick up a copy every 3-4 years) but this deal changed my mind. I also hadn’t planned on subscribing to the NFL Sunday Ticket online again this year, but again, this deal made is worthwhile get it for another year. Considering the normal $250 price tag for NFL Sunday Ticket online, many may find this a reasonable deal even if you don’t play Madden.

UPDATE: 8/27/2013 – The Madden 25 Anniversary edition arrived today. Included in the case is an insert with a unique username and password to access the NFL Sunday Ticket online or via mobile. This insert also provides the URL for logging into the NFL Sunday Ticket Application in your browser. I haven’t tried to login yet, but seems pretty simple.

Also, the price of the regular NFL Sunday Ticket online version has gone up to $300 for 2013 making this Madden 25 Anniversary deal that much better.

How to Purchase

This NFL Sunday Ticket deal is exclusive to Amazon, so you’ll need to pre-order Madden NFL 25 Anniversary Editionhere at Amazon.com. Be sure you are ordering the Anniversary Edition!

Links

Info and FAQ on the offer from EASports.com

Order Madden NFL 25 Anniversary Editionat Amazon.com

H/T: Big thanks to Jordan for bringing this one to my attention.

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