As mobile and handheld platforms grow up, can we see a sports gaming Renaissance? - RaychelSnr's Blog

Arena Blog Dynasty Scores Sign Up ☰

RaychelSnr's Blog

As mobile and handheld platforms grow up, can we see a sports gaming Renaissance? Stuck

Posted on January 15, 2013 at 10:33 AM.

(7)

It is clear that the major gaming platforms are going to feature exclusive sports licenses for the foreseeable future. It is also very likely the terms of exclusive deals will actually become a tad more favorable for developers in the new era of sports gaming licensing -- thus resulting in a dearth of sports gaming options if you are a gamer on the big box consoles only.

Soccer and Basketball are the only two sports with 'real' competition across multiple platforms still planned for the next generation. Baseball is halfway there with The Show on PS3/4 and (currently) MLB 2K occupying both the XBox and Playstation, but that hardly counts as direct competition like we'd like to see.

EA seems to be gearing up for a fight in basketball with NBA Live still floating out there somewhere, and it is likely to launch this year (finally). Of course, with three years of development time -- the game had better be phenomenal because, simply put, it is going to have to be to stand any chance.

With the new generation of consoles fast approaching, it is clear that if you don't have development teams ready to make the transition now to the newer and shinier consoles, you may not be able to catch up in the future. In a de-facto sense, exclusivity will have to reign supreme in the next generation because development requirements will outstrip any company's ability to develop new licensed sports games from scratch in a year or possibly even two years.

Even if EA or the NFL were to decide upon ending NFL exclusivity, there is no guarantee another developer could step up in a year to deliver a satisfactory experience to rival Madden. 2K Sports has developed one football game in a generation, and the tech used in that game is quite old itself. Recycling old game code into newer generation consoles isn't as easy as it sounds as even better visuals will be quite unforgiving to archaic animation systems. Thus, it is unlikely another company could even develop an NFL game in a year at this point, they'd need two minimum just to get a workable game which consumers would accept.

For sure, it definitely seems as if we're stuck in the era of exclusivity for what seems into perpetuity. Or are we?

Down the tunnel, a light seems to approach us.

In a distant and faraway land, there is a place where development requirements are not so stringent, and a place with hardware that can lend itself to creation of games roughly equivalent to what we saw in the PS2 and X-Box days, the golden years of sports gaming.

That mythical land of which I speak is mobile and handheld gaming.

If you are one of the cool kids walking around with a handheld PS3 (aka the PS Vita), then you know there are highly capable mobile devices which are on the market today -- and those devices are capable of delivering very satisfactory sports gaming experiences.

In fact, FIFA Soccer and MLB: The Show were both quality and capable replacements of their console brethren on the PS Vita in my opinion.

While touch screen interfaces aren't the most keen for simulation sports gaming -- how long will it be until some genius creates a gaming controller or control pad add-on for iDevices and Android devices? The answer (of course) is that you already can do that.

What needs to happen in the coming years, and I believe it somewhat will happen, is that a market for deeper gaming experiences on mobile platforms has to begin to develop -- and the handheld gaming market has to continue its slow march to being a mobile gaming market in and of itself in a sense.

As more and more 'typical' gamers begin to play more and more games on mobile devices, I believe a demand for a deeper type of experience, somewhere between where mobile games are now and where consoles games are will develop. This won't be a huge market, but it will be sizeable enough that publishers take notice and want to develop for it.

So long as the exclusive licenses don't begin to carry over to mobile gaming markets -- I believe it is then that we will see a Renaissance of sorts in sports gaming with a strange hybrid of simple controls mixed with deeper gameplay mechanics emerges.

Perhaps the eventual answer to mobile gaming is a game not too far from Tecmo Super Bowl, complete with licensed teams -- but with a more realistic play style. Think a mixture of the old with the new. Madden's Franchise (errm Connected Careers) mode meets Tecmo Super Bowl's gameplay.

Of course, these experiences won't measure up to a simulation experience on a new PlayStation or XBox console. But for a fraction of the price, they won't have to. The price proposition simply needs to be adequate to match the gameplay experience customers receive.

And perhaps this all never happens. But at this rate, I see no other way to get multiple sports games from different sports out in the same year.

So call me a hopeless romantic or a desperate sports gamer if you want.

The first step towards all of this becoming reality is when gamers begin to take mobile experiences a bit more serious on a scale large enough that publishers take notice.

If and when that happens, the gaming experiences will deepen and sports gaming will have its day again.

Would you be willing to pay $20 for a deeper sports gaming experience on a mobile platform?

Comments

# 1 F0rl3fclov3r @ Jan 15

I will not spend $20 on a game for my iPhone. No way. $5-$10 sure, if its worth it but when you start talking above that, it's just not worth it with all the other gaming options already on the App Store. I am a gamer and will always buy the newest console and I will stick mainly with the titles for the console. I look at mobile gaming as just something to occupy time in your down time, not a full sit down experience.

# 2 GlennN @ Jan 15

I can't put my iPhone and my Vita in the same discussion. I agree with the posting above, I too have not paid, and could not imagine paying, more than $10 for an iPhone game. My Vita though? If they made a hockey and college football game for it, with a career mode, I'm in line to buy (at the normal Vita price point).

# 3 TDKing @ Jan 15

I don't play video games on a small screen.

# 4 geisterhome @ Jan 15

i have yet to see a smart phone game of any kind which is fun for more than 5 mins.

# 5 fsufan4423 @ Jan 15

The only reason iphone gaming is popular is because it's a phone that just happens to play games. I couldn't imagine buying a device like a ipod or iphone just to game.

If the Vita could get some serious developers on board for some more sports game, I would be in heaven.

# 6 JasonLin @ Jan 15

I'm willing to pay 30 dollars for a quality NBA title on ps vita. It doesn't need to have all the features like MyPlayer or Create shoes.. Just solid basketball gameplay with full franchise/season mode will be good enough to keep me happy for a year..

# 7 gsize19 @ Jan 16

Hope so, I love my Vita, would love to see more Cross Platform Sports games... Love the MLB the Show feature with PS3 and Vita, would love to see that with Madden, and also for the Vita to add NHL and Tiger Woods... If they had more of a catalog, it would sell more. For people like me that travel, or work in an office with down time at times, it is awesome to have to continue a season and then keep right on going when I get home. Plus my wife loves it because it means she gets to drive more. Just would love to see more sports titles. I don't want new innovations, just titles that are already in existance, that I can continue a franchise or season with and still have the ability to play online if I so choose.