Lack of Sports Games on 3DS

[FieryReign]

I've been looking into the 3ds library, reading reviews, and watching a few video reviews because I plan on purchasing one. I noticed there seems to be a quality-over-quantity approach with the games. Very much unlike the DS and GBA, which had some great games, but the abundance of garbage made it hard to sift out the good games.

I noticed there is a severe lack of sports games on the 3DS, much like the DS. Besides a single Madden game and numerous soccer titles(including EA's FIFA), there seems to be literally nothing available. I am a big sports fan(mostly football and basketball) but not a huge fan of the annual updates by EA and co. I do enjoy playing through a season of a sports game but not to the point of some idiots who stand in line for a game that will be worthless in a few months. I don't even own any modern systems.

There doesn't even seem to be a decent golf game for the system. Yet it's such a casual pick up and play game, perfect for a portable system. Mario Golf doesn't count, the last time I played one of those games it took me a half-hour just to get into the actual golf game. If I wanted to play a rpg and read tons of dialogue, then I'll play a boring-ass jrpg, or read a book. The GBA Mario Golf pissed me off to no end. I don't mind rpg elements or a rpg mode. This thing forced you to play the rpg mode, with no options for a quick play or something. Didn't make sense for a portable game...

Does EA not want to support the system(besides soccer)? Sega and their NBA or MLB games? Even arcadey style games like NBA Street or a new Blitz game would be great. Some of the worst systems in history at least had a basketball game. This thing has NO hoops title.

Not like the graphics aren't capable, from what I've seen the visuals look impressive. What's the deal?

[Dangerboy]

As a person who has worked gaming retail for 16 plus years, that answer is surprisingly simple:

They don't sell.

With the rare exceptions, sports games have no real pull on the portable - partially because the hardware is geared towards kids, partially because in today's gaming world, they want you competing online where they can track you (and not in an NSA way). I bounced between two stores during the 3DS Launch, and both locales sat on the same 3 copies of Madden 3DS they had since launch. If you look up sports releases, a LOT of them fell off years ago. Even the latest Fifa game in Vita is just last years game with a stat swap (i.e. the 'Legacy Edition'). Wrestling drifted away from the DS as well.

[FieryReign]

How would they know unless they tried? Just because Madden didn't sell means nothing for other sports games from other companies. Is his name the be-all-end-all of all other sports titles? Is it because they can't get their precious preorders with Gameslop? PSP had a pretty good string of sports titles. A lack of a single basketball game on a system is SAD. The NES, SNES, and GB were marketed to children and there were tons of sports titles for those systems... No excuse...

[Bojay1997]

How would they know unless they tried? Just because Madden didn't sell means nothing for other sports games from other companies. Is his name the be-all-end-all of all other sports titles? Is it because they can't get their precious preorders with Gameslop? PSP had a pretty good string of sports titles. A lack of a single basketball game on a system is SAD. The NES, SNES, and GB were marketed to children and there were tons of sports titles for those systems... No excuse...

A big part of it is probably the fact that third parties that hold all the major sports licenses don't really support any of Nintendo's platforms right now with either sports or non-sports games. Nintendo seems to have no interest in creating it's own serious sports titles, so that pretty much makes it almost impossible to get much beyond Fifa right now (it's coming to 3DS and Wii this year, but not WiiU). The excuse is that EA and other third parties don't feel the 3DS or WiiU are lucrative platforms for major releases that carry expensive licensing fees right now.

[Dangerboy]

A lack of a single basketball game on a system is SAD. The NES, SNES, and GB were marketed to children and there were tons of sports titles for those systems... No excuse...

Yes, because using insanely outdated, completely hindsight based systems - ALL of which were:
a. Under much stricter publishing rules at the time because...
b. All three were the dominant systems of their generation...
c. when Nintendo essentially dictated the industry, being the Hot Seller

is a fair comparison to today's market and Nintendo's current "Hey we're fine over here in the corner, it's all good." Position in the industry.

It also helped that multiple companies were allowed the usage of the same license. You know...like when Blitz, GameDay, Full Contact, Tecmo Bowl, could all offer competition. Variety drove sales, too.

How would they know unless they tried?

When a company like Squaresoft blames Tomb Raider for their poor software sales, even though at the time of that statement it had just past 4 MIllion copies sold, companies are looking for a huge profit gain. If a major third party says 4 Million Copies of a AAA game can't pay the bills, no one is going to take a chance on a game for a system it doesn't normally do well to begin with.

Not unless you wanna pony up the dev costs...

Is it because they can't get their precious preorders with Gameslop?

That's GameStop, and yes, the buck *does* stop there, both the bunny and the currency. Pre-Orders are stock controllers: If a game is getting crazy pre-orders, it means a shit ton more is being sent on top of those to sell to walk-ins thanks to word of mouth and hype. If no one is reserving it, the chances of it getting more than a single copy at every store are slim to none. I've been in the industry 16 years: I have seen *plenty* of games get shelved or cancelled because no one was reserving it.

The internet powered world is 1000x more brutal with judging games that any era before it.

Is his name the be-all-end-all of all other sports titles?

Pretty sure, yeah. That whole 26-years-straight-with-no-sustainable-competition thing really does play a part, sadly. If he wasn't, do you think companies like MS would waste the money on System bundles staring it?

[FieryReign]

Reasons why I don't even bother with modern gaming. Too much bullshit involved. There are other successful sports franchises besides Madden. I never did preorders. Alot of people don't need a game the day it comes out. And Gameslop's persistence on forcing them down your throat(along with their dumbass magazine thing) turned me off years ago. "Can I just buy this game without the sales pitch", was always my reply. I would never give them my money again, especially after they tried to sell me a "new" game that had the shrinkwrap removed and a scratch on the disc.

MLB, NBA, and PGA don't have exclusive licenses with companies. You don't even need Tiger and co. to make a decent golf game. Give me something besides Mario. Alot of americans could give 2 shits about soccer, yet they continue to pump FIFA games out. They can't be selling all that well. I guess I'll just stay retro, it's their loss, not mine...

[Bojay1997]

Reasons why I don't even bother with modern gaming. Too much bullshit involved. There are other successful sports franchises besides Madden. I never did preorders. Alot of people don't need a game the day it comes out. And Gameslop's persistence on forcing them down your throat(along with their dumbass magazine thing) turned me off years ago. "Can I just buy this game without the sales pitch", was always my reply. I would never give them my money again, especially after they tried to sell me a "new" game that had the shrinkwrap removed and a scratch on the disc.

MLB, NBA, and PGA don't have exclusive licenses with companies. You don't even need Tiger and co. to make a decent golf game. Give me something besides Mario. Alot of americans could give 2 shits about soccer, yet they continue to pump FIFA games out. They can't be selling all that well. I guess I'll just stay retro, it's their loss, not mine...

Just because a license is not exclusive doesn't mean it's cheap. Producing good sports games on any platform is extremely expensive and producing them for handhelds, especially where the hardware and capabilities are fundamentally different than a console is doubly challenging. The main reason Sony continued to produce sports games for the PSP is that PS2 games could easily be ported over with minimal effort.

As for your other points, Fifa is a huge seller internationally and so the development and licensing costs are covered and selling in the US is just cheap gravy. As for Gamestop, if you find a good store, they can be great. All you have to say if they ask if you'd like to preorder is "no, thank you" and most employees won't bring it up again. Similarly, ask for a factory sealed copy and that's what you'll get, especially if you preorder. People really into sports games do need to buy one day one because they have friends who want to play with them on-line from day one and the games get release around the time the actual season starts so the stats are most accurate. If you're a solo player who doesn't play over a network or care about rosters or stats, then buying the game when it hits the bargain bin might be fine.

[Dangerboy]

This is what people thought was worth printing and developing.

[FieryReign]

This is what people thought was worth printing and developing.

That's funny because I found this looking for 3ds sports games.

Now all my questions about Spongebob facing Mike Trout in the 9th inning have been answered... Seriously? Shit like this gets published instead of an actual sports title? The licenses are being used but in stupid-ass ways...

As for Gameslop, just no. I don't even understand how they are still in business with their slimy ways. But this isn't about them...

[Dangerboy]

I get to play the 12P card and quote myself:

With the rare exceptions, sports games have no real pull on the portable - partially because the hardware is geared towards kids,

Rare Exception: A Sports game that has characters kids love. You know, like Spongebob.

Since it goes well with the other sports game that has characters kids love, you know...like Mario Golf.

On system that's...you know....geared toward kids.

However, this is essentially just a "Why not just write 2K themselves and get their comment on the situation?" Clearly baseball wasn't working out for them on any platform, and they seem to have more faith in sweaty half naked men on console (read: WWE) than anything else.

A series, you may notice...not coming to the portables. *Shrug*

[Gameguy]

Seriously? Shit like this gets published instead of an actual sports title? The licenses are being used but in stupid-ass ways...

Usually people complain about all of the sports games, how they're all the bargain bin trash that you always find at thrift stores rather than anything "good". Now when they're slowing down on releasing them for newer systems, people complain that they're missing. It's like complaining that there's less filler. Just a bit surprising to me.

[FieryReign]

Usually people complain about all of the sports games, how they're all the bargain bin trash that you always find at thrift stores rather than anything "good". Now when they're slowing down on releasing them for newer systems, people complain that they're missing. It's like complaining that there's less filler. Just a bit surprising to me.

Yeah, when they're being released every freakin year with nothing more than a roster update. But having at least 1 game for all the major sports would be nice. Especially a golf game, it fits a portable system nicely. I've never even seen a commercial for the thing so I can't tell who it's marketed to. The games I was interested in are certainly not kiddie games. Nobody is going to write 2K games and complain because I don't care that much, I just won't purchase the system or their silly "sports" games. Just wondering why they don't support a pretty cool looking system. No skin of my back, I'll stay old school. Modern times suck...

[Tanooki]

You know he's right about them being filler, but it's also right that it is because the garbage comes out yearly at full price with very little done other than roster updates and EA is notorious for it with some sports.

Why couldn't they do some balls to the wall quality baseball, football(soccer), nba game and so on ...2K Sports would be good, and then only release it physically every 2 or 3 years, and in between charge $10-15 for a roster update download since 3DS games have lots of rewriteable space?

People who want the game can enjoy it, those who don't won't have anywhere near as much filler, and those who don't just play casual and wants all the facts can buy the update package. Everyone wins, including the developer not having to make a full game every year and waste all the resources in making a physical or even full blown download copy of it.

[PapaStu]

I'll bite. I'm a 3DS whore (150 titles) and also having a very large amount of DS games (just shy of 700) I've noticed that they dropped sports titles for the DS from major publishers about 4-5 years ago (so when there was still 2-3 years of life in the system). Some franchises had a single game for it. Basketball and Hockey got Backyard Sports treatments and that was it. Madden for the DS stopped in 2010 and most of the other stuff ended around the same time.


Now for the 3DS there was a system launch title for Madden, that didn't sell and got stupid cheap, disappeared off shelves and now is worth some decent $$.

There are 3 ProEvo Soccers (11-13), 3 FIFA Soccers (12-14) with 2015 on the way next month. The last 2 of those FIFA titles have been basically online or pre-order only and other than the first Pro Evo you didn't see those in stores either, other than Fry's or at Amazon.

NBA Top Trumps isn't even a basketball game, but a collectable card game about basketball.

There is a single bowling game (Brunswick Bowling), One Wrestling game (WWE All-Stars), a couple of fishing games (Super Black Bass 3D and Reel Fishing 3D) and the one Nicktoons Baseball game.

The Olympics got a Summer Games release (Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 games).

There are some sport driving games for both Indy and NASCAR (F-1 2011 and NASCAR Unleashed), and a few silly car driving/racing games that don't fall under the sports umbrella (like Crash City Mayhem, Driver Renegade, Fast & Furious, Need for Speed: The Run, Monster 4x4 3D, Hot Wheels, Spy Hunter etc.) and one could question if the realistic-esque nature of Asphalt 3D and Ridge Racer 3D should count as a 'sports' title or not.

There are a few multi-diciplinary sports titles (Dual Pen Sports and, Deca Sports Extreme).

That is pretty much everything that I saw either from what I've got personally, or what Amazon showed me (which was only a few of the above games, I didn't already have). Not a ton of titles and there aren't really any in the pipeline.