College Hoops coming to next gen

[BenGerman]

Quote: Originally Posted by steelersfan77

There's an article in the USA today clamoring on about how popular March madness is this time of year. And who doesn't already know that? Look, a college basketball game is a must but it needs to hit shelves closer to March madness. Late febuary would work. During or right before the conference tournaments begin. That's when the tournament begins their advertisements, bracket challenges, ESPN gets heavy on the lunardi bracketology, marketing. Lets face it, March madness is popular beyond belief, the regular season isn't, at least not to the casual college hoops fan.

From what I know (which, admittedly, is not much) the biggest issue is the player likeness stuff.

My take on it is that EA is hesitant to do anything NCAA related right now, and the reason NCAA Football is still up and running is because of money it makes. I think 2K wants to see the dust settle on the lawsuit, and then might make a move.

Again, from the small bits I know, developers/producers have been contemplating a game because of the large amount of success 2K has had with their NBA series (both critically and economically). March Madness makes a ton of money, and the trick is figuring out how to market a college basketball game and assimilating it with the tournament.

We'll see, but I'd bet a decent sum of money that we see someone give the game a shot (not next year, but the year after probably). This would leave time for the lawsuit to be sorted out, and to get the game established on next-gen hardware.

[DmosleyBoy]

It is a very real possibility as EA's exclusive rights deal with the CLC ends sometime in 2014. And the NCAA liscenses will be open for negotiation!

[King_B_Mack]

Quote: Originally Posted by DmosleyBoy

It is a very real possibility as EA's exclusive rights deal with the CLC ends sometime in 2014. And the NCAA liscenses will be open for negotiation!

I'm fairly certain that EA doesn't have an exclusive license to college basketball games.

[BenGerman]

With each passing day, it's more and more likely the twitter account was a dead end of sorts.

Either way, I'm sticking to my theory that we will have a next-gen college basketball game at some point. Was looking at the amount of money March Madness has racked in this week. Wowza.

[waytofailself]

Quote: Originally Posted by DmosleyBoy

It is a very real possibility as EA's exclusive rights deal with the CLC ends sometime in 2014. And the NCAA liscenses will be open for negotiation!

EA doesn't have an exclusive contract with the NCAA licenses. Instead, the NCAA has set the price so high that only EA wants to make games with them (and only football, as other sports like basketball and baseball did not meet their profits due to sales and license expense)

[BenGerman]

Quote: Originally Posted by waytofailself

EA doesn't have an exclusive contract with the NCAA licenses. Instead, the NCAA has set the price so high that only EA wants to make games with them (and only football, as other sports like basketball and baseball did not meet their profits due to sales and license expense)

Which is sort of puzzling considering you'd think the NCAA would take what they can get at this point. Something has to be better than nothing for them.

[waytofailself]

Quote: Originally Posted by BenGerman

Which is sort of puzzling considering you'd think the NCAA would take what they can get at this point. Something has to be better than nothing for them.

Considering how much in legal fees they are paying to protect their band, chances are they are terrified of it getting devalued like the NFL faced when 2k sold NFL 2k5 for $20 at release (which was the catalyst for the exclusive deal to begin with).

It's all about brand and maintaining the value. Yes, not having an associated video game may stink for the NCAA, but obviously they'll be fine.

[BenGerman]

Quote: Originally Posted by waytofailself

Considering how much in legal fees they are paying to protect their band, chances are they are terrified of it getting devalued like the NFL faced when 2k sold NFL 2k5 for $20 at release (which was the catalyst for the exclusive deal to begin with). It's all about brand and maintaining the value. Yes, not having an associated video game may stink for the NCAA, but obviously they'll be fine.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

The best move, IMO, would be for either EA or 2K to attach a college basketball game at $30 a pop to their NBA title. Then you give the buyer an option to buy the NBA game on its own, or buy the college basketball game with the NBA game for $90. That way you a) don't have to sacrifice your NBA sales to people who normally only buy them when there is no NCAA game b) ensure that when someone wants to buy a college basketball game, they're also buying your NBA game c) you basically get to test the market of a NCAA game without losing out on too much money.

I think it will be really interesting to see who makes the first move. There's always the chance we see something smaller like a game only available via the arcade. If the license weren't such an issue, I have a hard time imagining 2K wouldn't have just taken their NBA engine and slapped some college uniforms on the players by now.

I wish I was more in the know about the whole thing, or that we could get a developer/producer to help explain what is holding them back from a college basketball game.