Is 2K Sports Fit for Survival?

[Dazraz]

A depressing read but sadly a realistic one. 2K as a company have got it wrong a few too many times & it may ultimately cost them there place in the world of sports videogames.

When EA signed their exclusive NFL license they took every player out of the market. How many releases of Madden during this exclusive period have been well received? Okay Madden 12 was a step forward for sure but itt is way behind what the current generation of consoles are capable of delivering. Without any opposition though EA can sit back & simply say, 'it's out game, or no game'.

With the exception of All Pro Football, which many still highly regard, EA have had no competition in the genre. When 2K signed their exclusive deal with the MLB it was only 3rd Party exclusivity. That left Sony free to pursue the MLB the Show series & what a job they've done. Bad enough then that you sign a ridiculously expensive deal, even worse when your game is blown out of the water. Even though 360 owners haven't got another baseball game to go to I wonder how many abstained from buying MLB 2K simply out of frustration at what was being created for the PS3.

The NHL series is another blunder by 2K. 2K should of stepped out of the NHL scene long before they did to give themselves some time to work on a new game & test it thoroughly prior to release. Instead they plodded on releasing progressively worse games until they had done irreversible damage to the title. Therefore, although their intention was to take a couple of years out, it seems NHL 2K is no more. What has this done for Hockey gaming. We have EA's NHL series that, although itself made some big strides a few years ago, has now started to go through the stagnation process we see many EA titles go through when there is a lack of opposition.

Unless somehow 2K can get the rights to do another Football game it's hard to see how the company can continue, at least in it's current form. The Top Spin series has competition now from EA's Grand Slam Tennis. Even 2K's one recent success story, NBA 2K11, has come back to haunt them. For so vast & impressive was the game from it's predecessor that everyone expected, unrealistically in my opinion, the same strides with 2K12.

The survival of 2K is not good for EA, the survival of 2K may not even be good for 2K themselves, but for us as gamers we need to hope survival does take place.

[SoAwesome]

Nope, next gen will save 2K Sports.

[CarryTheWeight]

Simply put, we NEED more variety in sports gaming. Different perspectives, at least, will make our gaming experience much better.

It will downgrade the product across the board if one publisher attains a stronghold on sports gaming. I don't want to see it happen, but with costs rising as consoles get increasingly powerful, fewer developers may be willing to risk buying into sports gaming.

[SHAKYR]

I hate to even think of 2K going under because EA would force feed us subpar garbage and expect us to accept it.

[RealmK]

Quote: Originally Posted by SoAwesome

Nope, next gen will save 2K Sports.

How so? Is having one title in NBA2k or maybe two if MLB2k doesn't go the way of the NHL2k sku some how going to automagically save their presence in the sports genre? Realistically when they bought VisualConcepts and Sega's sports lineup when they bowed out of the console hardware market, all they've managed to do was drive nearly the entire line into the ground based on a lack of quality, support, and funding.

2k's days are numbered when it comes to sports games.

[beantown85]

2k has done nothing to help themselves. It seems like every year when NBA comes out there's a million glitches that take months to fix before you can even fully enjoy a game, that's pathetic.

I do hate the fact that every sport has only 1 game that comes out because of the licensing. Madden has gotten lazy and their product is actually getting worse as the years go by because they don't have any competitors to worry about. Madden used to be my favorite game and every year it just gets worse, this year is no exception. Especially with the fact that they have the worst announcers on that game ever, they don't even have a play-by-play announcer that actually does NFL football.

[LiveBaller]

I think 2ksports could be around for a while. They could release college hoops again as dlc for nba2k or a stand alone Xbox live arcade game. For 15-20 bucks it could be a very good sell just like NFL 2k5 was. They need to make another football game. They can go with a more story driven approach like fight night champion which could sell. Adding a more story driven mode in all their games could help.

Also they might have to somewhat change their lineup of games. Might have to add other sports racing or soccer or ufc or boxing. New technology like the euphoria engine in their games. Expand to over the top games like NBA jam. I think it could be done with as long as the games are competitive to EASports lineup they cold survive.





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[JerseySuave4]

hopefully they can survive because i don't know if i can go back to EA basketball games anymore after playing such a great basketball sim like NBA2k. And hopefully the NFL-EA exclusive rights thing ends soon and they can get into the NFL market and make a game that will either push the Madden team into making a game worth the money or surpassing them with their own game.