2K Sports sure seems to be struggling right now. In the wake of Thursday’s announcement that parent company Take-Two expects to post aloss of $137.9 million this year— which is largely the fault ofpoor performance from 2K Sports’ baseball games— comes a rumor that the next installment in the publisher’s hockey series,NHL 2K11, may have been axed.
Yesterday,Pastapadre noticedthatNHL 2K11was nowhere to be found onTake-Two’s Q4 fiscal 2009 resultsin the section of games that the publisher is currently planning to ship in 2010. (BothMLB 2K10andNBA 2K11are listed on the report.) Chris Littman at The Sporting News’ FirstCuts blogasked 2K Sports for comment, and this is what a PR rep told him:
We are currently in the process of evaluating our sports portfolio and have not announced any new NHL titles at this time.
That’s a damning statement if I’ve ever seen one. Littman pointed out that ifNHL 2Kis no more, the franchise appears to be dying the same death as the publisher’sCollege Hoops 2Kseries. AfterCollege Hoops 2K8released in November 2007, the company remained quiet on the future of the franchise before announcing in January 2008 that it had ended negotiations with the Collegiate Licensing Company (which, as you may have guessed, controls licensing for college sports) andwould not be making any moreCollege Hoopsgames.
Hit the jump for some more thoughts on what this could mean for 2K Sports.
This is not an entirely shocking prospect for 2K Sports, whoseNHL 2Kgames have been badly outsold in the past two years by EA Sports’ celebrated hockey titles. Competition in the simulation sports genre is very tough, to be sure:NHL 2K9and2K10weren’tbadgames, by most accounts, but it just so happened thatNHL 09andNHL 10were better. If it turns out that this is, indeed, the end ofNHL 2K, then I’m sad for all the folks at developer Visual Concepts who may soon be out of work.
I also worry for the future of 2K Sports as a publisher. Their existence seems like it’s being increasingly marginalized on all fronts:
Only their highly acclaimedNBA 2Kfranchise remains a dependable success, and even that was challenged by a solid effort from EA this year inNBA Live 10. And with Take-Two’s recently stated preference to put out easily marketable titles for hardcore gamers (“the safest place to be is in triple-A,” said CEO Strauss Zelnick) — games likeBioShock 2andMax Payne 3— I wonder if the company will continue to bother (or can afford to continue bothering) trying to compete in the sports game market, or at least in any sport other than basketball.
What do you guys think?
[ViaPastapadre,FirstCuts, andGameSpot]
