EA Sports Officially Drops MVP NCAA Baseball Series

[Steve_OS]

According to GameArgus and Street & Smith's EA Sports has officially dropped the MVP NCAA Baseball series.

Quote:

"After somewhat keeping the MVP Baseball franchise alive over the last two years by going with college teams and players, Electronic Arts has decided not to renew their deal with the NCAA to continue the series, according to a report by the Sports Business Journal. Originally making the title after they lost the Major League Baseball license to 2K, EA claims the games recieved good critical praise but just didn’t have the sales numbers to move forward. “This is our focusing on delivering things that can move the needle for us,” said EA Sports President Peter Moore. “It’s trade-offs and prioritization. Nobody is a bigger baseball fan than I am, and we love our friends at the NCAA. But there’s obviously a big difference in interest between MLB and college baseball, whereas in football and basketball, that gap is much narrower."

[sportznut02]

of course there is a big gap of intrest between in NCAA and MLB baseball. but it doesn`t help when you put a half ##$ effort into making the game.

[DubTrey1]

Not a big surprise with the move by EA. Besides, Moore is right. Coll. Baseball is no where near as popular as Coll. FB or Basketball. If EA ever acquires 2K, then perhaps they can revive the MVP franchise and give MLB the Show a run for the $.

[bkfount]

doesn't matter, they'll be able to make MLB games again by next season. Just have to buy Take Two.

[koshi]

06 was a cool game, and surprisingly good. I would've liked to see it fulfill it's potential.

Maybe someday we will see the inclusion of amateur baseball into one of the professional games, if not a full fledged NCAA game.

[Thrash13]

If you aren't making money on a game, then I understand cutting it. However, if EA Sports would have put a full-blown effort into it, things would have been much different. The following for college baseball isn't near as big as it is for basketball and football, but it's bigger than people think.

Now I'll be stuck with editing rosters on MVP 07 for the rest of my life.

[Deuce_1982]

Wonder if anyone will take a chance on the NCAA Baseball license. Me personally would love to see Sony pick it up as another baseball game they could sell using the MLB The Show engine.

[koshi]

Quote: Originally Posted by Deuce_1982

Wonder if anyone will take a chance on the NCAA Baseball license. Me personally would love to see Sony pick it up as another baseball game they could sell using the MLB The Show engine.

I had in mind that maybe they could just include it into The Show somehow. I think it would fit well into the Road to the Show mode. You could maybe go through an amateur season or two and then get drafted by a pro team.

I doubt we'll see an NCAA game again. But yeah, maybe in a couple of years the timing could be right... Sony could have it's engine tuned well and ready for a new exterior... More people will be PS3 owners... And who knows, maybe the popularity of College Baseball will have grown by then. Now that they show a good variety of regular season games on the CBS College Sports channel it sort of has a home, along with the regional games of Fox Sports... And of course the CWS...



Certain things will have to be in place. I guess we'll see.

[DrJones]

Quote: Originally Posted by Thrash13

If you aren't making money on a game, then I understand cutting it. However, if EA Sports would have put a full-blown effort into it, things would have been much different.

The bean counters at EA had already decided that it wouldn't be profitable, even before MVP 06 was released. They cut the team size from about 35 to 5 (I'm not kidding). They were going to scrap 07 entirely, but 06's stronger-than-expected sales (plus the fact they had another year remaining on their licensing deal with the NCAA) prompted them to put a skeleton crew on 07 instead.

[DrJones]

Quote: Originally Posted by bkfount

doesn't matter, they'll be able to make MLB games again by next season. Just have to buy Take Two.

Even if EA acquired Take 2 today, that wouldn't happen. Takes way too much time to build something from scratch. The earliest you'd see an EA-made baseball game would be 2010. For 2009, they'd simply publish 2K9 while starting up an in-house team to make MVP 2010 (or whatever they'd call it).