NBA Doesn't Go Exclusive
The National Basketball Association has signed a new video game licensing deal, opting to re-up with the current publishers of NBA games instead of committing to an exclusive agreement with say EA or Take-Two. The $400 million, six year deal, will see EA, Take-Two, Atari, Midway and Sony continue to release their own brand of games.
[NBA Executives] said they preferred the non-exclusive arrangements because they believe it enhances the quality of the games. "Its been our experience that relative competition among the (publishers) has inspired a tremendous amount of creativity," said Sal LaRocca, senior vice president of global merchandise for the NBA, in an interview.
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WreX
replyWho would've thought that the NBA of all leagues would actually have some sense about them and avoid the EA Sports monopoly. I, for one, can't stand the fact that EA is getting these exclusive deals set up because in my opinion their games may have been the best on the market, but they were far from being the best possible games. Especially the NBA Live and NCAA March Madness products. The ESPN/Sega NBA games have been far superior in the last few years and if I were to get stuck with Live for the next 5 years I would stop playing it until they radically overhauled the engine. Let's not forget about NBA Ballers success and the fact that it was actually as fun, if not more fun than NBA Street.
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after finally being able to compare the two i cant believe people say the ESPN game is superior to NBA Live. In presentation definitely, but the Live gameplay blows away the ESPN NBA 2KX series. It's not even close. Its hard for me to understand people play Live and then like ESPN more.
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They both stink. Basketball sims have been dead since Live '95.
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You couldn't pay me to play the Sega BBall games after Live 2004 came out.
Prettier graphics than EA? Yeah. But gameplay wise at least Live was challenging. Nothing in 2k4/2k5 came out looking like two teams playing basketball. Let's not forget the removal of teh postup game in 2k5.
Again, Sega makes great football games but have no clue how to make an nba game.
But yeah, I agree that the competition will mean better games. -
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