2K Sports Ends College Hoops Series Due to Outside Interference (EA Sports)
01-16-08, 07:52 AM
#1
Suspended
Thread Starter
2K Sports Ends College Hoops Series Due to Outside Interference (EA Sports)
College Hoops 2K9 ejected
2K Sports officially cans next installment in collegiate basketball sim after negotiations with Collegiate Licensing Company fall apart.
By Tom Magrino, GameSpot
Posted Jan 14, 2008 12:18 pm PT
Annualized sports franchises are the closest games to sure-thing money makers in the industry, and publishers in the past have gone to great pains to wrap up exclusive access to the licenses. Most notably, EA in 2005 secured exclusive rights to the National Football League through 2010, and Take-Two owns the sole third-party rights to the Major League Baseball until 2012. Aptly opting for a five-man roster, the National Basketball Association licensed out its rights to Electronic Arts, Take-Two, Midway, Sony, and Atari in 2005.
With nearly all the major players able to take to the professional basketball court, the NCAA license bench has today for the time being lightened by one. As initially reported by Kotaku, 2K Sports has canceled College Hoops 2K9, which was sketched in for November 2008. The call was reportedly made due to a standoff in licensing negotiations with the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC), which holds the rights to college trademarks for more than 200 college and universities.
"2K Sports has decided not to continue negotiations with the CLC for the license for its top-rated College Hoops franchise, which would have been released next in November 2008," said 2K Sports in a statement. "We are committed to providing fans with high-quality, critically acclaimed sports games, but given our disciplined approach to the business, we do not believe the current discussions would result in an acceptable outcome."
2K Games provided no other details on the negotiation climate, but Kotaku reports that the reason for the breakdown in talks was outside influence from Take-Two rival Electronic Arts, which releases its own multiplatform annualized college hoops series, NCAA March Madness. EA and the CLC had not responded to requests for comment as of press time.
Sports of all sorts have been a sticking point for Take-Two recently. Reporting on its fourth-quarter revenues in December, the publisher noted that its 2K Sports division failed to turn a profit in 2007, despite a "very, very solid performance" by NBA 2K8. One of the primary drains on the division was 2K Sports' return to the gridiron with All-Pro Football 2K8, which featured a heavily loaded cast of NFL legends instead of current-day stars. As of the end of November, All-Pro 2K8 had only managed less than 159,000 copies on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in the US, according to the NPD Group.
2K Sports officially cans next installment in collegiate basketball sim after negotiations with Collegiate Licensing Company fall apart.
By Tom Magrino, GameSpot
Posted Jan 14, 2008 12:18 pm PT
Annualized sports franchises are the closest games to sure-thing money makers in the industry, and publishers in the past have gone to great pains to wrap up exclusive access to the licenses. Most notably, EA in 2005 secured exclusive rights to the National Football League through 2010, and Take-Two owns the sole third-party rights to the Major League Baseball until 2012. Aptly opting for a five-man roster, the National Basketball Association licensed out its rights to Electronic Arts, Take-Two, Midway, Sony, and Atari in 2005.
With nearly all the major players able to take to the professional basketball court, the NCAA license bench has today for the time being lightened by one. As initially reported by Kotaku, 2K Sports has canceled College Hoops 2K9, which was sketched in for November 2008. The call was reportedly made due to a standoff in licensing negotiations with the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC), which holds the rights to college trademarks for more than 200 college and universities.
"2K Sports has decided not to continue negotiations with the CLC for the license for its top-rated College Hoops franchise, which would have been released next in November 2008," said 2K Sports in a statement. "We are committed to providing fans with high-quality, critically acclaimed sports games, but given our disciplined approach to the business, we do not believe the current discussions would result in an acceptable outcome."
2K Games provided no other details on the negotiation climate, but Kotaku reports that the reason for the breakdown in talks was outside influence from Take-Two rival Electronic Arts, which releases its own multiplatform annualized college hoops series, NCAA March Madness. EA and the CLC had not responded to requests for comment as of press time.
Sports of all sorts have been a sticking point for Take-Two recently. Reporting on its fourth-quarter revenues in December, the publisher noted that its 2K Sports division failed to turn a profit in 2007, despite a "very, very solid performance" by NBA 2K8. One of the primary drains on the division was 2K Sports' return to the gridiron with All-Pro Football 2K8, which featured a heavily loaded cast of NFL legends instead of current-day stars. As of the end of November, All-Pro 2K8 had only managed less than 159,000 copies on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in the US, according to the NPD Group.
01-16-08, 08:43 AM
#3
DVD Talk Legend
This was my favorite BB game so this sucks. I don't really care that much about the pro game, but I guess that is my only option now.
Speaking of All Pro Football, I picked up a copy for $10 and it is barely worth that. You can't make a comeback to football and release a game that mediocre.
Speaking of All Pro Football, I picked up a copy for $10 and it is barely worth that. You can't make a comeback to football and release a game that mediocre.
01-16-08, 09:24 AM
#4
DVD Talk Legend
You can't make a comeback game, without real players, and try to price it at full retail when your last outing couldn't beat Madden (in sales, I LOVED NFL2K5) at discount prices. That is why I laugh at people who say that businesses are smarter than average people. They are just as dumb as everyone else.
01-16-08, 09:39 AM
#5
Originally Posted by spainlinx0
That is why I laugh at people who say that businesses are smarter than average people. They are just as dumb as everyone else.
01-16-08, 10:33 AM
#7
DVD Talk Legend
Sure, they could have done that. But they probably felt they could sell more copies with retired players rather than fake players.
01-16-08, 11:23 AM
#8
DVD Talk Ultimate Edition
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Pittsburgh, PA GO PENS!
Posts: 4,946
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
EA should really just fucking buy 2k Sports developers, and have them make their sports games if they're going to do this shit. It's to the point that when I buy a sports game, I feel dirty for a minute if it's EA. I loved the 2k NHL games for so long, and didn't buy EA for almost 7 years, but now that their hockey game is better, I'm back at EA, and I somehow feel bad about it.
01-16-08, 01:26 PM
#13
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Originally Posted by lotsofdvds
Blame the NFL license for that, not 2K.
01-16-08, 06:06 PM
#15
DVD Talk Legend
Originally Posted by PopcornTreeCt
I really hope 2K holds onto the NBA license. Their games are so far ahead of the Live series.
01-16-08, 08:48 PM
#16
DVD Talk Godfather
Originally Posted by darkside
Losing College Hoops is bad enough. If NBA2K was lost as well it would be a crime. EA has shown how lazy they can get with no competition with the Madden series (no improvement until last year when 2K put out another game). No telling how much worse the already shitty Live series would get without competition.
01-16-08, 10:41 PM
#20
DVD Talk Legend
The NFL wanted to sell exclusive rights. EA was willing to put up the money.
