Kotaku's Brian Crecente has a leaked copy of the National Institute on Media and the Family's annual Media Wise Video Game Report Card, set to be officially released tomorrow. This year's report card is broken into five parts:

¿ The MediaWise Video Game Report Card
¿ The Buying Guide
¿ The ESRB Rating System and Ratings Education Efforts
¿ The Retailer Ratings Education and Enforcement Surveys
¿ Annual MediaWise-Harris Interactive Poll of Kids and Parents

Kotaku gives a quick summary for each part.
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The best selling games in units sold, across all platforms, for the year are as follows, with more year-to-date sales data available at the source.

¿ Halo 3 - 3,700,000
¿ Madden NFL 08 - 3,200,000
¿ Guitar Hero II - 2,800,00
¿ Wii Play with Remote - 2,500,000
¿ Pokemon Diamond - 2,100,000
¿ Pokemon Pearl - 1,500,000
¿ Spider-Man 3 - 1,400,000
¿ Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock - 1,400,000
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Analysts said Tuesday that Electronic Arts is cutting prices on sports games such as "NBA Live 08," "Madden NFL 08" and "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08," which the analysts said is a bad sign going into the holiday season.
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With a 400k debut, Bioshock has a pretty legitimate shot at 1,000,000 units long term. For a sense of scale though - even in week two Madden (across all platforms) - outsold the game.

With the Americas data now in, it is time for the weekly look at Vgchartz sales data. For the week ending August 25, Xbox 360 saw the release of a key release - Bioshock. Additionally, numbers for Madden NFL 2008 in week two across all platforms were quite similar to the debut of Bioshock. That said, it is important to note that Xbox 360 hardware did not see a boost. For more on the current generation hardware sales (PS3,Wii, 360, DS, PSP) as compared to last week, check the chart.
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The Wii, Xbox, GC and PSP versions of Madden 08 ¿ combined - accounted for fewer than 10% of the 1.6 million units sold while 360 version sold them most and 4 times the PS3 version.

-- 8/18 ---- 8/11 ------ Net Change
NDS 131,930 / 126,277 / +3%
Wii 89,280 / 86,469 / +4%
360 59,118 / 52,484 / +13%
PSP 53,206 / 55,160 / -4%
PS3 47,928 / 41,499 / +15%
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New York City, and more specifically Times Square, is the center for hundreds of launches, parties, and events a year. Tonight however, EA Sports delivered the largest video game launch that we've ever been a part of by buying up giant billboards, holding an Ozzy Osbourne concert above the Hard Rock Cafe, and essentially shutting down a piece of the busiest city in America for a bit of the night, all for the launch of the heralded Madden 08.

Note: We've put together a more than 11 minute video of the event for you guys to check out. Click here for the goods.

We mingled and interviewed Hall of Fame NFL players at the ESPN Zone, we pulled the Prince of ******* Darkness aside after his concert to ask him a few questions about Madden 08's soundtrack, and even went out and spoke with you guys - the fans - at Toys "R" Us who had started lining up for the midnight launch as early as 2:00 PM in order to have the first copy handed to them by the beloved Tiki Barber.

We'll have tons of coverage from the event including photos, a lengthy video showcasing the aforementioned celebrity interviews, and a detailed article later in the week so keep it locked to IGN.com for all the goods.
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Happy Maddenoliday!

With today's release of Madden NFL 08, many gamers have called in sick with football-itis.

It looks as if this years well received version has made an impression on the sales over at Amazon this morning. Currently, Madden has 4 of their versions (Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and the Nintendo Wii), on the top 25 best selling list over at Amazon! Interestingly enough, the PlayStation 2 is outselling the Playstation 3 version.
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August 14, 2007...

The annual event known to all armchair quarterbacks is here again! Maddenholiday Eve is upon us!

Throw out your books and spreadsheets and grab on to a cold one and your controller boys! Tell your boss to shove it (or perhaps tell him that pesky summer cold has come back... sniffle.. sniffle...)...

Its almost release day for Madden 2008 and nothing else in life matters!

Come midnight, its just you and your franchise mode... building an early lead on gaining the required skills to take down any friend or virtual friend that gets in your way of world football domination...
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What's on offer this week for those slumbering gamers now waking from their self-imposed summertime hibernation periods? Well, although GamerSquad would suggest that you've perhaps set your quality alarm a week too early, there are obviously vast sways of American Football fans who'll be wiping the sleep from their eyes and pulling on their favourite team jersey right about now. And why? Because EA's sporting granddaddy Madden NFL 08 hits the stores tomorrow.

However, beyond that single multi-platform highlight of the week ¿ which you should fully expect to reach the top of the gaming chart ¿ the remaining rundown for new releases on both sides of the Atlantic still leaves much to be desired.
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For many sports gamers, a yearly purchase of Madden '08 is a given. Saving $10 on any $60 game is nice (PS3 and Xbox 360), but this discount even works on the PSP and Wii/PS2 versions, bringing them down to $29.99 and $39.99 respectively. Nice.
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