EA Sports is currently "evaluating [their] approach to the Madden NFL franchise on the DS," which will result in the series skipping the system this year.
Last week when the Madden NFL 10 cover athletes were revealed, there was no comment on the status of the DS game, which was conspicuously omitted from the press release.
When reached for comment, EA Sports' Senior PR Manager Rob Semsey released the following statement:
"We set extremely high standards for quality at EA SPORTS and we are constantly striving to deliver the best sports experiences to our consumers. To ensure that we maintain the highest level of quality possible, we are currently evaluating our approach to the Madden NFL franchise on the DS. As such, we will not be releasing Madden NFL 10 on the DS platform. That said, we are excited to announce that Madden NFL 10 for the Wii has been completely redesigned and built from the ground up at our Tiburon studio in Orlando, Florida."
Given the comment, it looks like Madden will be skipping the DS this year. Fortunately for Nintendo fans, the Wii version holds promise as it is being developed by the main Madden team at Tiburon.