College Football 25 - Game crashes to Xbox dashboard

I hate to tell ya but a company that's making a literal billion dollar profit per year isn't gonna notice 200 people asking for a refund from a financial perspective. You'd be talking about less than 0.01% of their profit, not even their total revenue. If they don't put out a fix some time soon, yeah, of course I'll ask for a refund, but for now there's no reason not to at least give them a couple days to take a shot at it because a refund quite literally only makes me unhappy about not getting to play the game, nothing else.

I get what you're saying but basically at this point why buy the deluxe edition that some of us did so we can play early and not be able to play early? This should have been resolved and not seem like they are not taking it seriously enough. When the game releases for everybody the floodgates will open up even more there will be more refund request.

Depending on when your issue started happening and I don't know if you played it through trial or not waiting for a fix is basically pointless when the game fully releases tomorrow. I get it you will be upset but for me it feels like I was taken advantage of just to be a beta tester for the people who didn't pay for the deluxe edition or higher. 

honestly, I refunded it will wait until it goes on sale after I see they fixed the issue.

Now that the full game is out, Does anyone know if the problem is on Physical versions of the games? I've had the problem on Madden 23 &24 but it was all digital. Wanna rule out more stuff

@EA_Illium @EA_Kent @EA_Barry 

I was perusing similar issues reported on the Battlefield 2042 forums (another Frostbite game with the same behavior), and one of the posts highlighted a potential fix.

My Xbox Series X has been experiencing the same "Play ~1/2 of a game and then randomly hard shutdown the entire console" for 5 hours of the 10-hour trial. However, after turning off Captures in the Xbox menu, I have yet to have the game crash once through 3 Dynasty games.

I suspect there's an issue with replays (which happens in Madden 23, 24, CFB 25, and Battlefield 2042) when Capturing is turned on because both the Xbox OS and the game(s) are accessing the same cache intermittently in a way that causes a hard shutdown.

If you get some developers from MS and EA on a Zoom call for an hour with that information, I bet they can identify a fix.

For everyone like myself who has been waiting on this game for 11 years: If you've bought the game and haven't (rightly) refunded it, try turning off Captures via the Xbox menu (last tab) and see if you can play the game you've paid for.

If you've got time left on your trial, give it a shot as well! While it may serve as a workaround, I won't be buying the game until/unless a fix for this long-standing Bug is released and announced. Teamwork makes the dream work, so have your people call Xbox's people, and let's get this sorted!  Hook 'em!

As we wait for any sort of EA resolution, I have also filed several consumer complaints with local, state and federal entities. This issue has persisted long enough across madden 22-now, pga tour and I’m sure other EA games. Unfortunately since we have no other options to purchase an NCAA or NFL game, I decided to not just sit and continue to read the copy and pasting of fixes that clearly don’t work. . 
do I expect anything to come of it? No. 
but it is better than screaming at a wall

Went through with checking the capture thing hoping it would maybe work I was able to do mini games with no issue (granted was the passing skeleton) but I can’t even get into a play now game (using the Gophers) it originally wouldn’t even get pass the loading screen for the game couple days ago now it gets into it showing Goldy and then freezes when the players walk out the tunnel. Been trying constantly for days to see if something is fixed and checking this forum for either help or when eventually a fix comes but nothing. Weirdest things I’ve noticed while I got past the loading screen from my attempts. 1.Goldy had black shaders all over him 2. When attempting this morning first attempt it got the players walking out and then boom screen tearing and shaders flying all over the place. I can’t even get into the game and it hard crashes my console requiring me everytime to hard reset or unplug my console. (I have a series s and it is an earlier one)

@atomictweetle 

Physical and 'digital' games are identical on xbox. There's no difference in version, all the physical disc does is act as a drm key.

Turning off captures doesn't help for me. 

For me it generally crashes towards the end of the second quarter. I did manage to go longer using super sim once.

---

@Lomein999 wrote:

Went through with checking the capture thing hoping it would maybe work I was able to do mini games with no issue (granted was the passing skeleton) but I can’t even get into a play now game (using the Gophers) it originally wouldn’t even get pass the loading screen for the game couple days ago now it gets into it showing Goldy and then freezes when the players walk out the tunnel. Been trying constantly for days to see if something is fixed and checking this forum for either help or when eventually a fix comes but nothing. Weirdest things I’ve noticed while I got past the loading screen from my attempts. 1.Goldy had black shaders all over him 2. When attempting this morning first attempt it got the players walking out and then boom screen tearing and shaders flying all over the place. I can’t even get into the game and it hard crashes my console requiring me everytime to hard reset or unplug my console. (I have a series s and it is an earlier one)

---

Hey @Lomein999, 

Are you only seeing this happening with College Football 25, or have you noticed similar issues with other games? 

@EA_Kent Only other game to have this issue was 2K and that was in the city and blacktop as well as the 3v3 myteam modes the npcs would stretch out (shaders) but wouldn’t crash just really couldn’t see. but playing anything else like play now or else with even more npcs in the audience no issue. Every other Madden no issue like this so 🤷‍♂️

@thomas_hardcore you simply turned off captures all together and it was a fix? Were you taking screencaptures and it would freeze?

Replying to you directly @EA_Kent so that you see it this time. I previously mentioned you and said the following:

"The game crashes back to the Xbox dashboard or occasionally even shutting off the console for every player in this thread. It seems to happen at different crash points. For example, mine is upon selecting an offensive play to run. If I play defense first in a game, I'll get through that full drive, then I'll crash out as soon as I get the ball and have to call a play. Other people have different points like quarter breaks, kickoffs, etc. This is happening in every 11-on-11 mode for all of us (for most it's happening in any mode period), with the small exception of that until today, I was able to play practice mode. Now I am not, and 11-on-11 drills (tug of war and bowling) queue the same crashing issue when I select an offensive play. It may or may not be important that on day one of the EA Play trial, I was able to play 3 games without issue. When I next booted my console and game, the crashing began.

As far as troubleshooting, we have tried, in no particular order:
Resetting the console and its power supply
Reinstalling the game
Playing on a TV instead of a gaming monitor and vice versa
Wired and wireless internet connections
Overheating prevention such as cleaning the fans and isolating the Xbox with plenty of airflow
Ensuring the Xbox is the only thing used by its power outlet (no surge protectors, etc.)
Using both versions of the game, the deluxe early access and the EA Play trial
Running the Xbox in safe mode
Using older or newer Xbox manufacture dates, to a point (not sure if we've had 2024 consoles in here, but some 2020s work and some don't anyway)
Using all manner of different teams and stadiums in game to see if that could be the issue (so far, doesn't seem like it)"

Do you have new information/suggestions, and is there a team working on solving this before official release comes out and thousands of people are hit with this?

Really don’t think we are getting anywhere in this thread. These “community managers” we are talking to are obviously just bots that spit out the same copy and paste answers and repeatedly ignores any responses saying their tips don’t work. Typical EA putting out a broken game and then blaming it on the user or hardware. I will probably be getting a refund as this problem has been in EA games for YEARS now only to never be fixed and honestly hidden by EA developers. Take some responsibility and fix your game. 

Would refunding and buying the disc be our only hope ? 

I would just refund man, it sucks I know, but EA obviously does not care that this is happening. The “community managers” in this thread are definitely just bots with copy and paste answers with no response for when we tell it that doesn’t work. This has been happening with lots of EA games for years now. It’s only a section of the player base that this is happening to, so why would they care? Video game companies have seriously fallen from grace, and EA is honestly just preying on nostalgia with this game. 

So I tried it on my sons series s and it doesn't crash  at all so believe it is a hardware issue

@LucasColin60 buying the disc will make no difference.

---

@joncardboard wrote:

@LucasColin60 buying the disc will make no difference.

---

What makes you so sure?