With FIFA 13 still a long ways off, EA Sports is offering soccer fans a reprieve with the new FIFA Street relaunch. Just as Electronic Arts went back to the original name for SSX last month, the game developer is taking a fresh approach to arcade soccer and eliminating the numerology in the title. The community has already gotten a kick out of the free FIFA Street demo to near-record levels of global excitement. More than 2.1 million people have downloaded the demo in the past two weeks, making FIFA Street the second most downloaded demo—behind only FIFA Soccer 12—released by EA Sports over the past year.

EA Sports is promoting its latest Tiger Woods golf game with the help of Shaquille O’Neal. The former star of Electronic Arts’ Shaq Fu game for Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo is now using his kung fun skills against Tiger. Check out the viral video below.

EA SPORTS and ESPN are once again allowing fans to cast the vote for the next Madden cover athlete. The Madden NFL Cover Vote campaign for Madden NFL 13 has officially kicked off. Last year, nearly 13 million votes were cast through ESPNSportsNation.com and ESPN mobile in both companies’ most successful cross-platform activation. Tenth-seeded Cleveland Browns running back, Peyton Hillis, trucked through the six week competition all the way to the ultimate end zone – the Madden NFL 12 cover. EA teased this news at the Madden Bowl in Indianapolis during Super Bowl week. Check out the exclusive video below with former Madden Bowl champ Maurice Jones-Drew, who’s in the running for the cover this year.

Mario Tennis has almost become an institution for Nintendo, in a way.  First introduced years ago on the Nintendo 64, it has since become an infatuation with Nintendo players, an accessible tennis game with multiplayer appeal and plenty of mini-games to keep players intrigued.  Now that tradition continues in the 3D realm, as Nintendo is bringing the series to the 3DS this May.

It’s been roughly about five years since we’ve seen a new SSX title, and the last one we saw, SSX Blur on the Wii, left a lot to be desired.  Between the motion controls and somewhat too arcade-y approach, it just felt nauseating.  I think EA Sports realized this too, so it went back to the drawing board to bring the game back up to speed for a relaunch on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.  And after a few delays – and revamping the concept after the initial Deadly Descents announcement – we’re happy to say that SSX, the way we used to remember it, is back.

NBA 2K12 continues to run at a fever pitch in the second half of the shortened NBA season.  The Game of the Year edition is set to hit Best Buy store shelves next week, at a decent price of $49.99; and to help further celebrate the basketball season, Microsoft has added a new jersey to its Xbox Live Avatar line-up that New York Knicks fans in particular will take interest in.  Nope, it's not Carmelo Anthony.  It's Jeremy Lin!

NBA All-Star Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns was asked a lot of trade deadline questions in Orlando. But one thing he enjoyed talking about was his videogame habits. There’s a reason Nash worked with EA Sports on the commercial for FIFA Soccer 12. He only plays FIFA when he’s gaming. Nash talks videogames in this exclusive video interview from Orlando.