MLB 2K11 News Post

Take-Two Interactive Suggests MLB Exclusivity May End When 2012 Deal Expires

12:12 AM - December 3, 2010 by Steve_OS

Take-Two Interactive's chairman Strauss Zelnick believes the company could walk away from its third-party MLB exclusivity deal when it expires in 2012, according to Reuters. At this point, he feels like Take-Two is not reaping enough benefits from the current deal.

Quote:


	"It's a losing proposition and we don't have any interest in pursuing losing propositions."

While that comment almost makes it seem like it's a foregone conclusion that Take-Two will walk away from the MLB deal in 2012, Zelnick also made it clear he was not opposed to renewing the exclusivity agreement if the terms changed.

Quote:


	"He said the company is open to renewing its game licensing agreement with Major League Baseball, but only if the economics change."

The "economics" he is hinting could deal with how the game sells in the coming years or how much cash has to be doled out for the license, but in the grand scheme of things that does not really matter.

In fact, I could have just typed "blah blah blah blah MVP Baseball 2013 could happen blah blah blah blah" and it would have sufficed here, especially for Xbox 360 owners out there who have not been able to get their grubby green hands on The Show during this generation of consoles.

Source - Reuters Summit-Take-Two sees opportunity in digital (Reuters) via (Kotaku)

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Member Comments

# 81 spankdatazz22 @ 12/08/10 01:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MLB01


	Then why are all the 2K Sports games worse looking and running on PS3 ? I don't know how anyone can speak on behalf of 2K at this point. It's all such a mystery anymore.

For the same reason that other games sometimes look or perform worse on the PS3 - games are frequently developed with the 360 as the lead sku, that's no secret. It's not just 2K games that look worse on the PS3 (I have both systems) so no need for you to try to insinuate it's a 2K-only issue

# 82 CMH @ 12/08/10 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MLB01


	Then why are all the 2K Sports games worse looking and running on PS3 ? I don't know how anyone can speak on behalf of 2K at this point. It's all such a mystery anymore.

As spank says above, the PS3 has a history of looking worse than its 360 counterpart in sports games. I don't pretend to know anything about hardware to tell you why, but I'm sure more knowledgeable minds can intersect.

2K has competition on the PS3 and is not trying to ignore that market just because the 360 market has no competition in baseball.

Also, I think a lot of these developers are beginning to realize that they also compete with other sports. This isn't always true, but you have to convince the sports fan (not the baseball fan) that it is worth their time to play a baseball game and not football, basketball, soccer or hockey.

360 owners do have options. If the baseball game isn't worth their time, even if they love the sport, they'll find another option.

I highly doubt any company sits down all year and says: "We don't have anything to worry about here. No one can buy any other baseball game, so we're good to go no matter how awful the product." I realize people like to believe in these things because of their disappointment in other sport franchises, but it's simply not true.

But, what is true is: when a game routinely under-performs, despite innovation, competition or pride, someone is responsible for the poor performance. 2K has changed developers quite a few times over the past couple years.

It's easy to say they don't improve, but 2K is trying to improve. They wouldn't change developers, lead producers, etc. unless they wanted to. They see the issues and now it's just about finding the right team to take care of them.

We shall see if VC is the answer. Last year looked like a strong improvement. But, Brinkman also had a strong improvement in his year one and then tanked in year two. So, hopefully, history doesn't repeat itself here.

# 83 ODogg @ 12/08/10 12:45 PM

CMH - i'll tell you why the PS3 version looks worse, because its a superior system to the 360. So the developers always have to develop it for the lowest end system and that's the 360 and port it over to the PS3. They couldn't very well develop it for the more powerful system and then port it to the system with the lower hardware as that would require a programming re-write in many areas.

Please also note I love the Xbox 360 and own 3 of them so I'm not a fanboy of the PS3 or anything (I own 2 of them) but am just stating my opinion on what you were speaking about.

# 84 bigfnjoe96 @ 12/08/10 01:24 PM

My understanding is the 360 platform is easier to develop on when it comes to multi-system games . Hence why devs port over to the PS3

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# 85 countryboy @ 12/08/10 06:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MLB01


	Then why are all the 2K Sports games worse looking and running on PS3 ? I don't know how anyone can speak on behalf of 2K at this point. It's all such a mystery anymore.

maybe because there are those who enjoy the game? There the mystery has been solved for you.

# 86 CMH @ 12/09/10 09:01 AM

I think the point of this thread has sufficed.

Locking this up. I hope we don't have to go through this in other threads related to MLB 2K11.

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