Well, we’re back for more All-Pro Football discussion and this week, we look to the future. In our look to the future, we ask the question: What can 2K Sports do to keep the All-Pro franchise fresh and new to increase sales? What can they do to keep pace with EA’s mega-hit, Madden?

The question itself seems like an easy one at first, but the further you look into it, the more difficult this question becomes to answer. The obvious choice is a graphical improvement and more Hall of Famers. The problem with that solution is it will only bring new people into the game and won’t necessarily keep them playing. Sure, those two things will go a long way toward increasing the sales of the game -- it would be great to get access to greats like Joe Montana -- but what can 2K do to keep us in the game?

One huge thing many players have been asking for is the ability to customize players on teams. Sure, 2K can leave in the option to randomly generate each position (such as linebackers, cornerbacks, offensive line and the like), but what they really need is to allow full customization of these “randoms.” Now, by customization, I don’t just mean names and equipment, I mean ratings as well. Think about it. Players could generate their entire high school football team, even if they haven’t played in twenty years.

As an extension of this, 2K would do well to further consider the ability to turn off the use of the Hall of Famers. I realize the HoF guys are the game’s bread and butter, but it would really take the game in an interesting direction. Now you don’t have to just create a small handful of Hall of Famers (or yourself as that amazing quarterback you should have been), instead you can go into the roster itself and let loose. You can make sure your team is exactly how you want it rather than unbalancing it with a handful of super players on top of a bunch of scrubs.

Whether these things could be done or not is one question. However, the biggest and probably easiest thing to do in the grand scheme of things would be to be more flexible in terms of the amount of Hall of Fame level players you can add to a team. Too often I saw computer teams with three or more gold players with adjusted quantities of lower level HoF players to make up for it. Now before you get all upset and scream at the computer before typing a terse response, I’m not going so far as to allow a team with eight or more gold level players. All I want is an increase in both the silver and gold levels by one or two and to leave the total Hall of Famers per team the same. In other words if I increase the number of gold level players on my team, I would have to pick less silver or bronze level players to do it. This would be similar to how the computer teams are in All-Pro Football 2k8, only with the restriction of not allowing you to make a team entirely of Gold level players.

On top of these changes, there is one final simple change that would make All-Pro Football 2K9 really successful. That change is a refining of the online league menus. In the MaddenMania forums alone, countless times it took another player’s explanation for some people to figure out how to find their league invites. A simple refining of the menu options would take care of this issue and take an already stellar online league format and make it even better.

But rather than closing this off like I’ve done in the past, I turn this question out to you, the reader. What do you think 2K Sports could do to improve their game’s staying power this year and make that leap into increased sales over last year’s title? Leave a comment and let’s hear your thoughts.