John Madden - the voice, face and name of EA's long-running Madden NFL series has passed away, aged 85.

While he was known mostly as a legendary coach and broadcaster, he had a huge impact on the video game industry as well. EA's series was around on Xbox's original platform and initially got its start on the Apple II in 1988.

Here's a message from EA (via Twitter) remembering this sports legend:

John Madden
Image: EA

NFL's official account also paid its respect to his involvement in the video game series over the years:

On behalf of the Pure Xbox community, our thoughts go out to John's family and friends during this tough time.

[source twitter.com]