Originally Posted by
Mamoscott
Also, the bumped up release date and budget price point for ESPN 2K5 are obviously Take Two's doing, and they're really fucking smart moves, which is why we all know Sega had nothing to do with the decision. To dethrone Madden, people need to actually try a football game other than Madden. This is precisely where the aforementioned budget price comes into play, because you will have a sizeable segment of the market that is willing to purchase two professional football videogames in a year when it only costs an additional twenty dollars. Once they own both games, they can judge them on their own merits instead of simply buying Madden and ignoring all other football games. In addition, you'll have another segment of customers that will give the game far more than a passing look simply by virtue of the fact that it's a budget/low-risk purchase. The Madden series has become so synonymous with videogame football that it's exceedingly difficult to even expose gamers to alternatives. That's half the challenge now.
By the way, ESPN 2K5 has actually been finished for weeks. It's not being rushed out.
I think you brought up some good points, but at the same time I wonder if this move could do severe damage in the long term.
What's going to be the public's perception of this drastic price drop? Will they see it as a desperation move, a last-ditch effort by Sega and Take-Two to rope in sales before possibly pulling the plug on the series? Will people look at the $19.99 ESPN NFL 2K5, and see that Madden NFL 2005 is debuting at $49.99, and immediately think "you get what you pay for"? Although there have been a few surprisnigly great gems released at budget pricing over the years, the truth is that most games released at under $20 are of noticeably inferior quality to the "top shelf" $40-$50 games.
Will all of the future ESPN games be released at the under $20 mark? This means games like ESPN NBA 2K5, ESPN NHL 2K5, and whatever else comes down the pike this year, as well as products further down the road like ESPN NFL 2K6.
If it's a "permanent" budget series, then how does this affect the development budget? Will Sega and Take-Two continue to allocate the same amount of resources to the series that they did in previous years (when they retailed for $50), or will they be given "bottom shelf" treatment like the numerous hunting/fishing/bowling/pool/poker games?
If the other games end up selling for $50 at launch, then how will consumers react? Will they wait for the games to drop to the $20 level before considering them for purchase (expecting that they'll drop in price quickly because that's the price ESPN NFL 2K5 retailed for)?
Also, as diffusionx pointed out, there's a certain amount of irony when ESPN does video game specials covering EA's video games. You'd think that they would want to promote the games that have their own ESPN brand on them.
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Not to mention I never had a problem with the graphics, but more or less with the way it plays, and I thought Playmaker Control in 2004 destroyed anything ESPN brought to the table that year.
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