No More Sega Sports 2k3

[TheGame]

"June 04, 2003 - According to Gamestop, Sega's new football game will no longer be called NFL 2K4, but ESPN NFL Football. The game's release date has also been changed from August first to September first. If this is true, that means that the game's main competitor, Madden NFL 2004, will be out a full month before Sega's struggling franchise.

When Sega bought the rights to the ESPN license across all of their sports games in 2002, the rights were granted so late they had little time to fully implement all of the ESPN personalities and attitude associated with the cable sports network. This season, however, Sega promises that the ESPN talent will be included in all of their sports titles, as well as using stat pages that look like they were ripped straight from espn.com.

Last year Sega forecasted sales in the millions, but instead of reaping the rewards of their critically-acclaimed game, Sega's football title was still outsold 10-1 by Madden NFL 2003. One of the main reasons attributed to this sales disaster was the fact that Sega released commercial's that looked almost identical to the ads for the Madden series. And since Madden is the better known of the two when it comes to the mainstream audience, Sega essentially spent all of their money to help push their competitor's games right off of the shelves.

Adding the ESPN name, however, is not an instant cure-all for sales. A few years ago, Konami released ESPN NFL Primetime and it was one of the worst-selling (and most poorly-rated) sports games in recent memory.

Sega has no official comment at this time, although a spokesman said that Sega Sports would be making a couple of big announcements about their NFL game in the near future. Whether the NBA and NHL games will also change their names to reflect the power of the ESPN license also remains to be seen.

IGN will have more on this story as it develops."

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/422/422513p1.html

I think this is a stupid move... ESPN has a history of craptacular games, and Sega just ruined all possibilities swaying people from EA Sports to buying thier product.

[DeathsHand]

It's not like ESPN is developing the game... When Konami got the license, they didn't have a history of critically acclaimed sports games like Sega does... The core game will be the same, just dressed up with ESPN stuff... *shrugs*

I thought NFL2K3 was quite a good game... I didn't play Madden 2003, but it was definately better than Madden 2002, and not just because of updated stuff... I'm talkin' gameplayness... yep...

[TheGame]

Originally posted by DeathsHand
It's not like ESPN is developing the game... When Konami got the license, they didn't have a history of critically acclaimed sports games like Sega does... The core game will be the same, just dressed up with ESPN stuff... *shrugs*

Well, a bad history is a bad history.... ESPN Sports is a terrible licence. I'm not saying the game is going to be bad, but the title will most likely push gamers away (like, ones who don't look at reviews). If they think ESPN will be a selling point they are sadly mistaken.

I'm not trying the games will be bad (which I think they will be anyway, just not sayin it ) I just don't see this helping Sega's situation. EA has stuck with "EA Sports" for over 10 years, and "Madden"... and it grows every year because everybody knows what to look for on the shelves.

Hopfully they don't drop the "Sega Sports" name... I liked the "2kX" game name too, but meh.

[Joeiss]

I really like the "2K_" name... It was so simple, yet so effective.

[gekko]

ESPN's name probably won't sell to anyone who's been around gaming in any way. But that's not the big deal.

They are probably trying to steer away from EA's names. NHL 2003 and NHL 2K3 can confuse people.