With March Madness right around the corner, all I want to do is fire up the 360 and lead a Melo Trimble Terps team to the Final Four. Unless I spend $140 on a used NCAA Basketball 10 game, that isn’t possible anymore.
As we all know by now, the NCAA Football video game is finally coming back after 11 years. The game was discontinued after the NCAA ended their licensing agreement due to a lawsuit by a former player. With the NCAA introducing NIL deals, these games are now able to return.
Unlike NCAA Football, the basketball games were discontinued due to lack of sales. NCAA Basketball 10 only sold 155,000 copies. This wouldn’t even cover licensing agreements with all the teams.
Since the NBA2K games have become worse and worse, I think the demand would be there for a new basketball game. 2K knows they have no competition anymore, and you can see it in the quality. Which is the main reason I haven’t bought an NBA game since 2017. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I’ve always believed that college basketball is infinitely more exciting to watch than the NBA.
Another reason for them to make a comeback is that streaming video games has become extremely popular. By the time both NCAA Football and Basketball ended, the streaming world hadn’t really taken off. When popular streamers decide to try out your game, it’s basically free advertising. Even in the last few years there were many people still streaming NCAA 14.
If EA Sports or 2K Sports decided to take on this project, the possible features are endless. The last basketball game really only focused on Dynasty Mode and online play. There was no Road to Glory or any creative options for the most part. They could add Road to Glory starting in high school and even incorporate NIL into it like NCAA Football is doing. There’s even possibilities to enhance March Madness in the game. Could add a Selection Sunday segment, choosing future Final Four destinations, Bracketology, etc.
If any company were to make this a reality, I think it would need to be EA Sports. It would be easier for them since they would already be getting all of the licensing agreements with the football game coming out. This also would be a good way for EA to get back into basketball after they stopped making NBA Live in 2019. This also would become new competition for 2K Sports and their NBA games. Which would hopefully lead to them to start putting in more effort on their NBA games.
With all of that being said, I sadly do not see a new college basketball game coming out anytime soon. Both EA Sports and 2K Sports will just look back at the previous sales and not want to take that risk again. For now, I’ll just be browsing every online store for the cheapest copy of NCAA Basketball 10.
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