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Sony Cans Most 989 Sports Titles For 2004
blueZhift writes "GameSpy reports that Sony's 989 Sports division announced today that NFL GameDay, NCAA GameBreaker, NBA ShootOut, and NCAA Final Four for PlayStation 2 will not be updated for the 2004-2005 season. Hmmm, with Microsoft recently shelving their sports lineup for 2004 and EA Sports games allegedly coming over to Xbox Live, one can only wonder if 989's announcement is EA-related as well."
I firmly believe that competition is a good thing, but let's face it folks, the only two companies putting out good sports games these days are Sega and Electronic Arts. 989 had good games early in the PS1 life-cycle, when they were taking advantage of the Sony machine's graphics better than the other guys. Guess what? EA caught up with them. And vastly surpassed them. If it weren't for Sega resurrecting their Sports department with the 2K games on the Dreamcast, EA would be the only name out there, other than Midway and those dopey NFL Blitz/MLB Slugfest games. Sports games are big business, but if you're 989, only selling games for ONE of the consoles (unlike EA and Sega), and you're fighting for that marginal percentage of the market share called third or forth place on that ONE console, then the well runs dry pretty quick. I applaud 989 for still making PS1 games, I always like to see old systems get love, but the creativity, the enhancements, and the feel and play of their games has taken a nose-dive over the past few years. 989 Sports, hate to see you go, but honestly, you won't be missed.
The Kingdom of Retarsia
Perhaps it will free up some funds for some original game concepts instead of the same old crap over and over and over...
Well, one can hope, anyway.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Does this mean that the PS3 and/or XboX2 is around the corner? Microsoft cancels 2004 games, EA does likewise, and now Sony? This means to me that, either people aren't interested in sports games any more (HA!) or that they're starting work on next-gen systems/games - after all, if Sony/MS want to have some kick ass games for startup (MS perhaps in a year, Sony by Q4/05), they need to get cracking, right?
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
It's poor quality related. The sports titles produced by 989 Sports always came up inferior, not just in the graphics department, but in all of the other departments as well. That includes gameplay, where it always fell short every year in every sport.
When you create a bad game, word spreads very fast and nobody bites at it. When you create a bad game in a series year after year, people don't trust the series anymore. And when you do that with multiple series, people lose trust in the developer. Had 989 been able to create quality sports titles, or at least learn from their mistakes like Sega did with World Series 2K, 989 wouldn't be in the situation that they're in now. But, 989 didn't even try. EA and Sega just gave them competition. They did not force them to create mediocre games.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
You're right, competition IS a good thing, and this move will make a bad situation even worse. EA already has a stranglehold on the sports market and we all know what EA Sports means: rubber-stamp sequels with updated graphics and rosters, licensed pop music, and no creative additions to gameplay since somewhere around 1999. I play mostly footie games, and having played FIFA since 94 or 95 somewhere (before they even went quasi-3d and had real rosters) I used to think that FIFA was as good as it got. That is, until I hit upon Sega's Winning Eleven series while looking for a decent footballer to import for my 'cube. I could understate things by saying that it was an eye-opener, but to be honest it made me realize that EA has been making gobs of money selling absolute shit for quite a while now. It certainly works if you haven't tried anything else, but I can't even play the FIFA series anymore - it's like trying to eat rocks for dinner after getting used to exquisite three-course meals.
Simply put, sports games can be vastly improved with some creativity and innovation, and EA is the one company you can trust to never ever EVER innovate. They've proved time and time again that the only thing they care about is the bottom line: they'll chew through developers and brands like snacks, release what should rightly be patches as add-ons, and sacrifice everything new and creative on the altar of "hey, it sold well enough last time" and glitzy graphics. It's painful to see. And even if this particular competitor made crap games too (haven't played any of their games, so I wouldn't know) it WAS competition. Maybe this makes sense for Sony, but every move that strengthens EA's sports dominance will shaft you - the consumer - in the end.
Game Before The Game (a gamer from each Superbowl team going at it using their team's virtual representation in NFL Gameday) succesfully predicted the Superbowl winner for eight straight years. This year, it predicted "Panthers 29 Patriots 21". Whoops. Maybe that's why Sony canned 'em. (Probably because it's so hard to have enough AI to make a virtual Bill Belichick...)
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
I dont have a PS2... Do 989 games suck or something?
I know the MS XSN sports games sucked, which is what I thought was the reason for them canning them...
I hate to see 989 and Microsoft stop competing in the NFL games, but both products were inferior. I would have preferred to see them step up to the challenge instead of rolling over and dying, but that's their decision to make. I guess Sega is my only source for NFL nowadays.
TinFoilHatRantOn();
I refuse to play Madden because it does some very un-football things like letting you pick a play by receiver. If you're too focused on one receiver getting the ball, you're going to throw a lot of incompletes and ints. Then again, I refused to play Microsoft's NFL game again after I realized that Microsoft just shuts off your defensive ability in the last few minutes of the game.
This does come from someone who takes the time to see how players move when audibles are called so that I can set up substitutions for a multi-set offense (like lining up in Goalline with my 5WR package so I can call an audible and be in a 5WR formation with the proper personnel while the defense has their goalline squad on the field). I might just be a little too picky.
TinFoilHatRantOff();
MS cancelled their XSN Sports games for this year too. Maybe they've finally realized that people don't want a new sports game every year which is almost exactly the same as last years only with an updated roster database which in this day and age, should be downloadable. Considering EB doesn't accept trade ins on sports games, I'm sure the retailers are happy too.
I don't know if anyone goes on a rental spree before buying like me. But without a shadow of a doubt, Sega sports games are superior compared to EA.
Don't get me wrong EA would eat 989 studios alive. But with the exception of really really deep franchise statistics, sega espn basketball, football and hockey was so much more advanced than EA sports games IMHO.
But 989 and the MS Sports products were just hangers on and both were single platform. The two guys still standing are mutliplatform and Sega is online with both systems. EA may be too.
The multi platform thing is not exactly critically important. If you compare the number of PS2's that have been sold vs X-Box and GameCube, you will find that Sony has an ungodly amount of PS2 units out there.
I hate to say it, but supporting X-Box or GCN right now is only marginally more important then a PC game supporting Mac. Being a single platform game is not a problem when that platform is 70% or so of the market.
END COMMUNICATION
I don't expect you to RTFA, but at least read the submission. Yes, it already says that MS cancelled their sports games.
If you are using a cross-platform engine and tools, it is definitely worth also supporting xbox and maybe even gamecube. While the xbox and cube sales numbers will be nowhere near the ps2 numbers, they still constitute a very welcome income.
And on that note:
Timesplitters 3 online for PS2 only
Doesn't necessarily prove that the EA Sports titles won't have Live support this year, but it definitely doesn't bode well.