You mean this Road to SundayBill_Abner wrote: Isn't Sony pumping a lot of dough into Road to Sunday? That's about as fictional as you can get.
From IGN preview: Road to Sunday the bizarre new gridiron entry from Red Zone Interactive is one of the strangest announcements I've seen in quite some time -- as not only is it a football title, but it's also a story-driven fighting game.
Yes, you heard that right. Road to Sunday is a football/fighting hybrid that takes the established sports knowledge of the internal Sony development studio and melds it with a one-on-one combat engine. This kind of genre-melding is another result of SCEA's commitment to producing plot-oriented sports titles from this point on, which representatives feel will open up additional gameplay options not thought feasible before.
That doesn't sound anything like a generic football simulation, sound like a niche gimmick, which isn't what people were claiming 2K series would do with their fictional game.
I totally disagree with you and I'm guessing you have never worked for a large corporation. Having worked for a big corporation as a project manager I saw crap on a daily basis that boggels my mind, ideas so good that get squashed because they are risky. You can dismiss the exec if you want but having seen it happen first hand many times I won't.Can a fictional football game sell enough to warrant making it? I think so, yes. There's a huge, huge difference between going after Madden and going after a profit. Can a fictional football game, a well made kick ass fictional football game, one that generates a lot of buzz with gamers, sell as many units as say, NHL2K5? Without a doubt. Hockey games in this country are a popular as hockey is on TV. And yet the NHL series keeps plugging along just fine. It's just too easy to say "suits would never do this." Suits in this business do crazy s*** all the time, so let's not make the execs out to be more than what they are here.
I never said there wasn't room for more then one game, I'd prefer 4 or 5 to choose from. But was Take Two just trying to make a profit by cutting the price of 2K5 to 19.99 or were they trying to take on madden?Football is such a inconic and popular sport in this country that there is room in the marketplace for more than one NFL-style game, even if the other games don't have the license. They are going to lose the war with Madden regardless, so instead of making that the goal, just try to make a great game that makes a profit by pumping $$ into development rather than ponying up for the license and a cover star.
The big risk here is that the gameplay would have to be great -- signigficantly better than Madden, otherwise there's little reason to play it. But I don't think Madden's gameplay is so good that that goal is unattainable, either.
A few people on this board are so bold as to predict the 2K series was two years away from taking Madden's top spot. So they are either going after the top dog, or they are content with their 4-5k in sales numbers. Seems like it changes a lot based on the current discussion at hand. Isn't it about time for the quality vs sales argument, I know that is always a concern when we start a new project.
As for your gameplay statement, isn't that a matter of preference anyway. I certainly don't feel 2K5 was signigficantly better then Madden in gameplay. But I still would have bought it, even if it had generic teams etc. just for variety. Problem is I am not average Joe, and I'm sorry in my opinion even average Joe is not going to buy a non licensed game over a licensed one when all he wants to do is play the Giants and do outlandish celebrations with Shockey. You'll have your chance to say I was wrong the day a fictional 2K series game sells 2 million copies.
