NBA 2K13 Features Sprite Slam Dunk Contest, 3 Point Contest, Rising Stars Challenge

[Slava Medvadenko]

I like it. Its a nice little bonus. But this better be on the PC. Even though it probably doesn't sell as well as on consoles, I hope this year 2k steps up their support for the PC.

[rosque]

Quote: Originally Posted by Slava Medvadenko

I like it. Its a nice little bonus. But this better be on the PC. Even though it probably doesn't sell as well as on consoles, I hope this year 2k steps up their support for the PC.

Again we got left off.. Nothing will be happening on PC. We might get lucky and have acces to My Player.

[thaone08]

Quote: Originally Posted by VDusen04

Again, I'm not sure how you're adding these things up. I must ask if you read the link provided or at least the excerpt quoted, for each seemed to explain things quite clearly. To break it down simply, 2K began an overhaul of their servers last year (ridding of a Dreamcast-era system they'd been modifying over and over since 2000). As a result of the limited production cycle that comes along with sports games, they had to lighten the online load to accommodate the development of the new system. The implementation of the new server struggled enough without attempting to run hundreds or thousands of 10-person games at once. As such, it doesn't seem it was a matter of not spending money and it doesn't seem it was a matter of trading one feature out for another. Rather, it seems Crew was a complicated feature to attempt to get off the ground in limited time provided on the heels of a complete server overhaul.

Money that 2k earns in a year from sales of their video games, a lot of money do not go into their game servers.

I think you're overestimating how much money this company has. While it's true they are a multimillion dollar company (presumably, maybe Take-two Interactive is underfunding their 2k label), that doesn't mean they have unlimited resources and they certainly don't get to pocket every dollar from the sale of their games. Since Take-two doesn't separate their financial statements into labels and individual product lines we only have their entire product line to go from but it can serve to demonstrate what a small percentage they get from sales.

Take-two's net revenue for 2011 was $1.136b - wow that's a lot of money right? Let's see how quickly that dwindles down.

First, let's reduce that amount by the Cost of Goods Sold (e.g. labor, material, overhead) which was $689m. We're now down to $447m in gross profit and we've only just begun to scratch the surface.

Next, we have to trim that number down to account for marketing ($176m), administrative costs ($109m), research and development ($69m), and depreciation and amortization ($15m) for a total of $370m of reduced profit.

With our remaining $77m Take-two has to pay interest on outstanding loans amounting to $13.5m. Hooray! Finally we made some money! But wait, we still have to pay $9.8m in income tax and $5.3m in liabilities from discontinued operations.

Finally, we're at $48m in net income, or 4% of net revenue! Unfortunately, the division of net income isn't readily accessible but that $48m has to be divided between both labels - 2K and Rockstar Games. That $48m then gets distributed to shareholders to fund your or your parents' retirement plans and college funds but that's another topic for another day.

The cost of bandwidth for dedicated game servers can be astronomical for a game like 2k12. By comparison, The9 (former host of China's WoW game servers) spent $73m on their game servers. Obviously NBA 2k12 would cost less but it's not as if they're spending $5k at Best Buy for a computer. Improving their servers would likely cost several million dollars.

Let's say it's $5m in net operating costs to improve their servers. That's $5m 2k has to somehow justify to Take-two and its shareholders. Do you think it would be easy or difficult for them to make the case that 10% of the entire company's net profit should be spent on servers that will not or will marginally increase sales? How many shareholders would they potentially lose by reporting a 10% loss in net profit?

At the very least this should give you an idea of what they're working with and why it's not as simple as going out and buying some new servers.

[WatShot]

Quote: Originally Posted by jmood88

I've never gotten why people complain about pre-order stuff, especially for sports games where most people buy year after year. You don't even need to pay for the pre-order if you do it online, so I don't see the issue.

Bc this is something that should already be on the disk on launch not some dlc crap

[ZB9]

NBA2k12 is by far the greatest NBA basketball game ever created (and probably the best sports game ever)...Im very curious to see how they can improve on an already great game. They have their work cut out for them.

All star weekend looks like fun. Ive always wanted to see the all star events in a 2k game!

[Majingir]

I never preorder games(especially since the closest place to me is an independent game store, so you can't preorder). Hopefully I can get a code an easy way, cause I haven't played an all star weekend event since NBA Live 06.

Was deciding between 2K13 or trying Live 13, but after this news alone, prob won't even think about even trying Live 13.

Haven't played 2k12, so hopefully 2k13 fixes some issues that were in 2K11(notably the custom music stuff)

[morningstar777]

I can count on 1 hand of how many times I actually played in the All Star Game/Dunk/3pt Contest and I have been playing 2K since the Dreamcast days, 2K is trying to encourage people to commit to buying the game by releasing a gimmicky feature for pre-orders only just to boost 1st day sales. It's ridiculous, 2K12 was by far the worst basketball game I have ever played in terms of being able to play sim, and let's not start talking about online association/drops/disconnects. I want to hear about gameplay fixes and changes, not no ALL STAR WEEKEND!!

[LD2k]

Quote: Originally Posted by WatShot

Bc this is something that should already be on the disk on launch not some dlc crap

Again, it's NOT DLC.

It's "Add-on" content - "Fans are encouraged to pre-order now at participating retailers in order to receive the NBA All-Star content on day one at no extra cost"