Now the License for MLB games has been purchased

[Griking]

But this time it wasn't by EA (http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=22779)

[ECWSandmanECW]

There goes MVP Baseball, quite possibly the greatest baseball franchise out last year.

[Griking]

There goes MVP Baseball, quite possibly the greatest baseball franchise out last year.

Yeah but excuse me if I don't cry for EA's loss there, they were the ones who started this shit.

I suppose we'll start seeing companys create monopolies in specific genres now to protect their ability to make these games at all. Especially since they can't make games in other genres any more.

[Rogmeister]

Luckily, this doesn't go into effect until 2006 so we will get one last edition of MVP Baseball. It's become my favorite baseball game, too. MVP Baseball 2005 could be my last baseball game for the forseeable future. Of course, I'm still playing the 2004 edition so that may not necessarily be a bad thing. Who knows, though...maybe Take 2 will blow me away in 2006...

[kainemaxwell]

Posted about this in the EA thread.

[SoulBlazer]

I still expect someone at some point to challenge these purchases in court.

[ronandjennifer]

Who purchased the MLB License?

[jslithy]

Take-Two bought the rights to the MLB license and also purchased Visual Concepts. So now Sega will make no more sports games.

[Richter Belmount]

oh well maybe it could be money towards shenmue 3 >_> , hey just saying.

[Rogmeister]

Well, there's more to sports than baseball and the NFL...there's soccer, hockey, baskeball...lacrosse!

[neuropolitique]

Not sure if yer joking about Lacross, but in the North East there is a professional league, or at least used to be. Indoor lacross is a very exciting sport to watch, and a game based on it would be fun as hell.

[scooterb23]

This is the license I hoped EA would go for...

[EnemyZero]

i dont understand why companies like ..mm microsoft cant have a monopoly in the computer world....and having a monopoly is ILLEGAL but EA can monopolize NFL games? thats bunk especially since madden is in the TRUNK and ESPN was in the drivers seat

[ddockery]

The problem is that you don't understand what the word Monoploy means. If EA somehow bought the right to the concept of Football, THAT would be a Monopoly, maybe. As it is, they own the rights to two specific LEAGUES. Other companies could make a game based off another league, college, or just a generic football game, The NFL license belongs to the NFL, and it is their right to do with that as they see fit. What I really don't get is the backlash at EA, but not at the NFL. The NFL is the one that had the choice to say no here.

The MLB thing bothers me as MVP was the only baseball game I found worth playing last year, and I love the Krukow/Kuipe announcing crew.

[PapaStu]

This only affects 3rd party developers. If Sony (who will continue to make sports games, lucky us x_x ) and other 1st party developers Nintendo and MS decide to jump back into the fray they can. EA was never the baseball king. Oh how quickly you all forget 3DO's High Heat Franchise, which consistantly blew ALL the competition out of the water. I applaud Take2 for making a move to expand their catalog beyond the RockStar sublabeled stuff.

[ddockery]

Actually I never liked High Heat. I wanted t like it, I tried to like it, but for whatever reason I just didn't. I can't even put my finger on what it is that bugs me about it.

[scooterb23]

On PC for a long time, I agree High Heat was the best...it wasn't until just a year or two ago that the console High Heat's finally caught up...

[Rogmeister]

I'm keeping an open mind as far as how good a baseball game Take2 will make. MVP Baseball, as I said before, is also my favorite baseball series and we still get this year's edition. I guess I could just keep playing that one from now on, making any trades or moves I choose to to keep the rosters current...

So who's going after basketball and hockey?

[Cryomancer]

Someone make a new Ninja Baseball Batman game, that would be awesome.

[Griking]

Actually I'd love to see a new RBI baseball. I have no clue what they'd add to it to on today's consoles though.

[vincewy]

I don't know what those leagues are thinking, why do they want exclusive rights to a single publisher, it reduces the liscensing fees in the long run, minimizes revenues, lessens varieties of sub-genres, there're people out there who'd not buy certain MLB/NFL/NBA games even if there're no alternatives.

Personally I could care less about sports games (except arcade style and some quirky ones), but this can affect health of those publishers not getting the rights to publish games, meaning we could see less games coming out in the future.