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Tag: 2K Sports

  • 2K Sports Pulls The Plug On MLB 2K

    Sports video games that aren’t Madden NFL or NBA 2K are in danger of dying out as quality and popularity continue to sink. We’ve already seen it happen once in 2013 with the death of EA’s NCAA Football franchise, and now 2K is killing off its MLB franchise.

    Take-Two Interactive announced today that its MLB 2K sports video game franchise is no more after deciding to not renew its licensing agreement with the MLB. The franchise’s death isn’t all that surprising after MLB 2K13’s lackluster performance. Critics and fans both agreed that it was a lazy update that didn’t respect the sport or the fans.

    As for 2K itself, the publisher told Polygon that it was going to focus on its more popular sports franchise going forward:

    “We have decided not to renew our MLB 2K series for 2014. We are very proud of the achievements made by the MLB 2K team and look forward to their contributions to our future titles, including NBA 2K — our industry’s #1 rated and #1 selling basketball franchise.”

    It’s quite possible that NBA 2K is responsible for MLB 2K’s death in a roundabout way. The team at Visual Concepts had to make two sports games every year, and NBA 2K was consistently the better seller. Why waste time on a product that can’t compete with Sony’s own MLB The Show when you rake in the dough on a franchise that hasn’t had any competition for three years now thanks to EA’s mismanagement of its NBA Live franchise?

    Speaking of Sony, MLB 14 The Show is already confirmed for a showing in 2014 when the latest game in Sony’s successful baseball sim hits the PS4, PS3 and PS Vita. It’s already looking pretty fantastic, and the visual upgrades in the PS4 version are sure to excite MLB fans. It’s just a shame that baseball fans will now have to commit themselves to one platform unless EA decides to revive its well-received MVP Baseball franchise now that 2K no longer has an exclusive license with the MLB.

    Image via MrWhiteShadez/YouTube

  • Here’s What The Next Generation Of NBA 2K14 Looks Like

    The next-generation is almost upon us, and developers are finally starting to show us just how much of a graphical leap we can expect with the PS4 and Xbox One. Some games haven’t exactly wowed us just yet while others really do embody what we have come to expect from next-gen machines. NBA 2K14 falls into the latter.

    2K Sports shared the first trailer today for the next-gen version of NBA 2K14 running on PS4 hardware. In short, it looks absolutely phenomenal. I’ve said before that racing games are usually what developers use to show what new hardware is capable of, but you can put sports games into that category as well.

    Check it out:

    For the past two years, the NBA 2K series has remain unchallenged as EA canceled its NBA Live reboot for two consecutive years in a row citing quality concerns. EA promises that NBA Live 14 will be a thing this year, and that it will be on next-gen consoles using EA’s new Ignite engine. We’ve yet to see what it will look like yet, but I’m pretty confident that NBA 2K14 will remain the crown jewel of basketball video games yet again.

    After all, it takes a special team to render Anthony Davis’ unibrow so beautifully, and the 2K Sports team nailed it.

    [Image: 2K/YouTube]

  • Student Wins $250,000 In MLB 2K13 Video Game Contest

    Every year, 2K Sports holds a contest to see who can pitch a perfect game in the latest edition of MLB2K. This year, a student from Oregon walked away with the $250,000 grand prize.

    2K announced this week that Justin Chavarria of Eugene, Oregon, beat out three other finalists at the T-Mobile All-Star FanFest in the Perfect Game Challenge. His win is even more impressive when you take into account that he was just one of over 2,500 challengers that submitted a perfect game during the contest.

    “Congratulations to Justin for exhibiting the skill and poise needed to achieve perfection in this year’s contest,” said Jason Argent, Senior Vice President of Sports Operations at 2K. “It was no easy feat, but he cemented his place in Perfect Game Challenge history, and we couldn’t be happier to award the $250,000 grand prize for his achievement in MLB 2K13.”

    In even more good news for 2K Sports, they announced that this year’s Perfect Game Challenge drew more participants than ever before. There were over 785,000 perfect game attempts with a 23 percent increase in unique perfect games thrown.

    The success of this year’s challenge most likely ensures the continuation of 2K Sports’ Perfect Game Challenge. The contest had been rocked with allegations of cheating in the past, but this year’s contest seems to have gone off without a hitch.

    Before you go, let’s look back at the admittedly humorous ads 2K Sports made for this year’s Perfect Game Challenge: