Last year ended with some horrible news for gamers, that EA signed an exclusive 5-year deal with the NFL to use all of their properties. This essentially made every other NFL game meaningless because it wouldn’t be able to use any of the teams, players, stadiums, or even cheerleaders. Arguably ESPN NFL2k5 was head and shoulders better than Madden 2005, but after that announcement its chances for this year became dim. Really. Dim.
Now it’s lights out, because Sega’s Take Two can’t even call their games (basketball, hockey, NCAA, NFL) ESPN… because EA has signed a 15-year (THAT’S A LOOOOONG TIME) deal with ESPN.
If you are a fan of sports games life for the future is dim unless by some miracle everyone decided to start playing soccer (FIFA and Winning Eleven both rule).
I don’t think ESPN had any choice. It sucks for football game fans in general. No competition is never good in business. 5-years is a long time in the NFL. That’s like 4 Patriot Superbowls. That 15 year old deal is going to last them long. Longer than Madden. Eh burn in hell EA, NFL, FIFA, Nascar (wait nobody cares about Nascar). It would be awesome if Sega would buy-out license to NBA and NCAA.
BLAH!