EA College Football 25 has fans scrambling to upgrade their decade-old consoles

We’re almost a week away from the release of EA College Football 25 and fans of the long-absent series can’t wait to get their hands on it—even those who just realized they might need to buy a new console to play it.

It probably shouldn’t come as a big surprise, but people who have been waiting to play the first installment in a college football game by EA since NCAA Football 14 have grown up quite a bit in the decade since its release. Many of those players were in college themselves, or high school, or even younger, and they’re now adults with full-time jobs and other responsibilities. That often means gaming has taken a back seat over the years, so much so that plenty of people didn’t even realize their old Xbox and PlayStation systems won’t be able to run the newest title and they need to buy a new one.

While players of all ages will certainly be playing College Football 25, it already has a reputation as a “Dad Game,” and those dads didn’t all keep up on their hardware. If anything, maybe the realization that they need an Xbox Series X or S to play the new game might give Microsoft a little uptick in console sales just as the company has been trying to combat that shrinking market by going all-in on developing more non-exclusive game titles and even game streaming.

It probably won’t provide too much of a blip, but as longtime esports reporter Jacob Wolf said, maybe EA deserves a little tip from Microsoft and Sony.

Nostalgia can’t carry a game by itself, but at the very least, it seems to be doing good things for the physical console market.

EA College Football 25 will be released globally on July 19. Just make sure your dad knows it won’t run on a PlayStation 3 before then and it should be a smooth release cycle for everyone.