To truintellectplaya. I spent a good 10 seconds trying to find a thumbs up or like button for your comment. I never found one but it was time well spent, great comment, spot on.

"The gameplay became so advanced and fantastic that they lost the casual market; a causality of their own hard work and success. It really is a shame."

alot of people predicted this back in 09.
I personally believe that 2k sports can survive with one franchise title. The NBA development team Id say is safe, The cut backs will be from the other sports development teams.
Ina ddition it would be wise to bring back college basketball. College basketball has steadily increased in its popularity since 2k8was released. This is based on TV ratings and the number of networks that chose to broadcast college hoops. Will it sell like the NBA serie,s probabaly not. Butcan it show a yearly increase in profit, probabaly so. In addition they can make a CH2k game an every other year release.

Finally, 2k has been innovative in sports development period. There innovations can be found in all sports games from diffenert devlopers. Those guys at 2k if theyd o lose their jobs will find jobs quickly.

2ks biggest problem has always been marketimng/advertising.

"The gameplay became so advanced and fantastic that they lost the casual market; a causality of their own hard work and success. It really is a shame."

I couldn't disagree More with the above Statement...

NBA 2k has a "casual" setting that makes the game "easier" and more arcade like for its "casual" NBA Fan... This mode is for the person that doesn't know, understand or even care to learn complexities of the game. Rather they just wanna pick up and play or just play with a buddy. The "casual" mode Opens the game up more and makes it more free flowing and "easy" to play. The intricacies, minute details and hardcore strategy of the real "sim" NBA Game is replaced with high flying dunks, flashy passes and fast breaks that the casual NBA Fans love...

Try it out if you never have. Its quite fun if that's what you're looking for.

Get both EA and 2K making all of the major sports games (football, soccer, basketball, hockey, baseball). In addition, let's get other companies making these games too (like Natural Motion). Competition is what brings out the best, so let's get plenty of it!

I like what the other poster stated that Microsoft should bring the 2k series under them. They could make some great 1st party sports titles and very well be a driving force to sales of future consoles for next generation.

If EA wins this battle, I will be pretty much out of video game sports market. To me, seems like all the EA sports titles I played (online and offline) most of it is geared to making "you" the star and not too much in the way of promoting teamwork. EA has not made a games that offers the sim style of gameplay that 2k does. EA Sports feels a lot like a game you would download off Xbox Live Arcade with little better graphics.

If 2k goes away, truly video sports games will suffer. Without competition EA most likely have zero drive to improve their games year to year.

Lot of people go as far to say what "improvement" even when they do have competition.

Live will never be able to compete with 2k on a realism level... If your after a different crowd (casual) then maybe you'll get some followers...

But if your looking for Sim, meaning:
1. a game that's as realistic as possible
2. a game that is commonly mistaken for a "real game" when someone walks in the room
3. a game that is so immersive (association mode) that you simply can't put it down

Then NBA Live isn't gonna do that for you.

However, If you like dunking on KG with Eric Snow than I'm sure EA's game will be right up your ally...

"I like what the other poster stated that Microsoft should bring the 2k series under them. They could make some great 1st party sports titles and very well be a driving force to sales of future consoles for next generation."

I think that would be awesome. Even if the some of games needed some work, I loved the XSN Sports line. I think the whole league thing they did was ahead of its time.

The problem is though, they risk pissing off EA. I don't know if it's true but I remember reading at the time that one of the reasons they dropped XSN was as part of the deal to get EA on Xbox Live because EA didn't like that XSN was competing against their Sports line.

I don't know if that's true but if so, I can see why Microsoft wouldn't be in a rush to get back into the sports business.

Scarface. It was a key moment because that $20 game was better than Madden that year by light years. By Earth years, I'd say eight because EA is finally using that Espn presentation like they should and Madden now plays like 2k did... ahem football does. also I feel like it was also key that year going forward That EA put the clamps down because of how great NFL2K5 was which probably would have made NFL2K6 be the NBA2K11 in 2006. Madden would have went back to the drawing board and failed to release Madden06 if EA didn't buy the rights. People keep skipping over NHL too. EA put that on hiatus and came back kicking major butt which soon ended 2K's NHL series. I'm looking at it from a standpoint of how/why would this be any different. The only real thing I can think of is 2K can't afford to take a year or two off to make NBA perfect oppose to EA who has other titles keeping them afloat to allow them to make changes/patch up the boat if you will.
Seriously though, can you imagine what a NBA2K title would be like if they developed it in a two year cycle?

Why does EA keep getting blamed for the NFL exclusive rights? Please correct me if I'm wrong here but it was the NFL that floated the exclusive rights and all the developers/publishers had a chance to bid on them. EA won it. How can they be blamed for being the highest bidder? They can be blamed for their games short comings but not the rights.
As for NBA 2K, they have one big problem to deal with and unfortunately it seems to be the one thing EA tends to do very well - Online. I know many people on here don't care about online and think of it as an insignificant part of the game. But the gaming community as a whole wants online multiplayer and they want it to work. If EA releases a decent game with a tight online experience, they will take a chunk away from 2K. For NBA 2K13 they need to knock it out with a functional online experience or the more casual players will walk away.

When exactly did EA put their NHL series on hiatus?

Welp, no more baseball for us who use the Xbox, unless the makers of The Show miraculously decide to release it on the 360 or MVP Baseball makes a comeback, which might happen. But this sucks for 2k. NHL 2k used to be a great series until the new generation of consoles came out. MLB 2k was average, but wasn't up to snuff. We all know how great NFL 2k was, and that might make a comeback. But right now, it's just NBA, and that's probably a little creepy for the people at 2k with NBA Live coming this fall. Tell you what, I think the competition with those two games is gonna be really right. Both developers really need to adjust, because they're both in danger now that the competition has returned.

*Correction: The competition between those two games is gonna be really TIGHT.

I think they can pull it off, 2k just needs to give NBA 2k all their resources to survive. Basically all of their money needs to go into NBA 2k technology. I loved 2k11 and 2k12 and I believe 2k13 is going to be something special. I believe 2k13 is going to be the do or die game for 2k sports.

[quote][/QUOTEIm pretty sure the reason EA wasn't on Xbox live initially was because EA didn't like the idea of having their online features controlled by Microsoft. Could be wrong but I highly doubt EA cared about XSN.

@retropyro - your 100% correct, it was the NFL that Dangled the exclusive license out there. I think people do forgot or simply don't know that.

I think that any developer that won that bid would have come under the same scrutiny that EA has since if they too didn't put out a quality product.

The thing that really sucks is that both Companies (EA, 2K) are very good at what they do. 2k has the Gameplay of their sports games, NBA2k and NFL2k (APF2k) down. While EA is lacking behind in the gameplay department (for whatever reason) but they do very well in other areas like Online Play.

If we could get these two companies to work together we (the consumers) could have the greatest sports game maker ever!