All Pro Football 2k8

Competition is what drove ea to get the exclusive licensing. It doesn't always work the way you think it is supposed to.

 

Yep, because they were being seriously outperformed. So again, exclusive licensing kills competition, which kills innovation. So unless you're happy with the status quo, exclusive licensing is a bad idea.

Now I understand why both EA and the NFL wanted an exclusive license, unfortunately the end-user didn't factor into these considerations at all.

 

That is opinion.

 

Of course it's an opinion. Problem is, almost everyone who played the 2k series, not blinded by fanboyism, at least began to see the strengthes in the games. ****, clearly Madden's OWN DEVELOPERS saw that 2k was building a better engine (and yeah, they were). They also saw that more and more people were jumping the Madden ship and swimming over to 2k. So they squashed that as soon as possible. Good business move? Sure. Everyone else suffer? You bet. You keep harping that it's all opinion, except clearly it was opinion more and more people were holding.

 

How is that clear?

First you make a blind generalisation that "everyone" saw the strengths and then in your opinion it was clear more people were holding that opinion when I see no facts or anything to support that claim.

 

Well, I'm with Kami there was forming a strong consensus in the online football communities that Madden, well actually several of EA Sports titles were being outdeveloped by other companies.
If you could find sales number for the last couple of years (which I doubt), I'm pretty sure you'd see EA's numbers go down in the years leading up to signing the exclusive license. The game was stale and pretty much didn't evolve since 2001 or 2002 (and no I don't consider Create-a-crap evolution). Only last year did Madden evolve with the Superstar and leadblocker mode, both of which are still work in progress.

 

Sales were going up for the ESPN games, critics were making clear differences between the two games, and that 2k series was already near par, if not surpassed in some aspects. No, I'm not gonna dig for stats, but I wouldn't lie to support such a silly arguement. More and more people were buying 2k and not Madden, thus people were seeing that there was in fact a better product by many standards. I said virtually everyone not blinded by their fanboyism saw 2k's strengthes, not everyone in general.

 

Article on the advancements in animation from IGN.....

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/772/772822p1.html

checkout the video on page 3 of the article as it shows what is rumored to be the animations that are going to be used for All Pro Football 2K8.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/772/772822p3.html

If this is the case, I am expecting another great football game from VC/2K Sports.

Later

 

I know this thread is about football, but there's a lot of talk about licensing. So I was wondering... why doesn't EA make a MLB game anymore?

 

2K got the rights for cross platform console MLB games shortly after EA got the NFL.

The MLB agreement is a little different than the NFL one. With the NFL agreement, EA is the only one that can make an NFL game period.

Sony can still make their MLB game for their systems, but only 2K can make the cross platform one.

It is nothing but stupid either way.

Later