Xbox 360: Console to See no Baseball Sim?
EA Sports is a sports simulation behemoth. Need proof? Mention gold and its Tiger Woods PGA Tour series immediately pops into mind. Football? You can’t go wrong with Madden. Want to play simulated college football? EA Sports’ NCAA Football is the category leader for collegiate football. However, there is one area where EA Sports is absent in. As in conspicuously absent.
No, it isn’t basketball. As we have reported earlier, despite a couple of years’ absence, EA Sports is making a return with the upcoming NBA Live installment. We’re talking about baseball. America’s pastime. EA Sports used to cover baseball. The storied EA Canada studio used to roll out EA’s Major League Baseball franchise installments with regularity until it got shut down by 2K Sports’ exclusive contract with the MLB. Now, all is up in the air if EA Sports can get around to rolling out an installment of MVP Baseball. The series was originally canceled due to low sales. Moreover, given the fact that 2K Sports has an exclusive MLB license and the amount of time it will take to build a new game, it is highly unlikely that EA Sports will be rolling out an MVP Baseball series installment this year. The series still has a lot of fans but given the fact that the game would have to re-done in high definition, and the amount of lead time and costs involved, makes it unlikely there will be an MVP Baseball installment this year. Which brings us to 2K Sports. 2K Sports immense deal with the MLB, estimated at $200 million, has proven to be a bad deal for the video game company. It has consistently lost money on the deal at the tune of $30 million annually. The new leadership of Take 2 is now focused on IP it owns completely. Since the deal expires in in 2012 and 2K Sports has exclusive rights to the Xbox 360 baseball space.
Screenshot from MLB 12 - The Show (Credit: Sony)
There’s no indication that it will roll out a baseball title for the Xbox 360 next year since 2K Sports’ deal with the MLB would have expired by then. EA Sports has not made any sounds of taking 2K Sports’ place. Other players haven’t made a clear indication. It looks like there is a very real possibility that there will be no baseball simulation game for the Xbox 360 in 2013.
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