Last week, EA's long-term partnership with FIFA came to an end, with EA rebranding its football franchise as 'EA Sports FC'. FIFA subsequently stated that it will work with other developers using the FIFA brand going forwards, and it looks like one of those could be Take-Two Interactive.
In a discussion with IGN, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick stated that although the company has no plans to announce at this current time, it is nevertheless interesting in expanding its opportunities in sport, praising FIFA as a "great brand":
"We're definitely interested in expanding our opportunities in sports, and FIFA has a great brand and incredible clout, but we have no current plans to discuss."
Of course, Zelnick's quote comes as little surprise so soon after EA and FIFA split, and it's unlikely we'll hear anything on FIFA's future plans anytime soon, but the lavish praise certainly raises a few eyebrows. After all, one of Take-Two's core publishers, 2K, is responsible for multiple successful sports franchises, including NBA 2K, PGA Tour 2K, and WWE 2K. It's sensible to assume that, if Take-Two does enter a partnership with FIFA, then 2K will be the publisher to take the reigns.
What do you make of Zelnick's comment? Do you think Take-Two and FIFA will form a partnership in the coming months? Sound off in the comments below.
[source ign.com, via eurogamer.net]
Comments 18
No, thanks. As much as I detest EA, at least they were upfront about the Switch releases and they were all complete on cartridge, not to mention that their FIFA games tend to plummet in price a mere month after launch, which makes the AU$20-ish asking price for what you get (on a 16GB cart no less) a value proposition that's hard to argue with for newcomers and diehard fans wanting the latest content.
But to compensate for the lack of parity with other platforms, I wish that EA had at least bothered to include an exclusive mode or two, like the Mii modes from years gone by. Even accommodating eight-player couch co-op (like the upcoming Mario Strikers game) could go a long way in making the experience more inclusive when compared with the 4-player limit on rival platforms.
Not really news.
A welcome possibility. I think that they will make a better game than EA. Goodbye to Switch and future Nintendo consoles probably, but what we have been receiving is trash anyways. I will be happy with an improved game in other consoles now.
The real downside is that we are probably loosing the $20ish sale just one month after each release every year now.
Microtransaction-laden Fifa 2K24 incoming!
I wouldn’t call it lavish praise, and as you say yourself, ‘… Zelnick's quote comes as little surprise so soon after EA and FIFA split…’ So it’s not really worthy of any raising of eyebrows
The worst thing about the 2K games is the amount of cutscenes wasted on advertising. The basketball games have fun core gameplay but there's so little game-time compared to cut-scenes of dancing and replays. I enjoy football games because there's generally a LOT less of that.
Yay let’s get a 50 GB soccer game with micro transactions
Personally unless EA or Fifa make a decent game then I think they are both likely to fail monumentally.
There is no bad information included when we are talking about possible competition.
In a perfect world, there would be multiple companies producing sports games. Competition is a good thing. I think the biggest leap in NFL games happened when NFL 2K released and pushed Madden.....then EA threw money at the NFL and NFL 2K series went bye bye. Since then it's been basically a cookie cutter game release each year with only minor improvements. If I were FIFA, I would want my brand on as many systems as possible.
Where's ISS Switch when you need it?
@dkxcalibur Pro Evo vs FIFA was a big deal 15-20 years ago!
@MarioBrickLayer Absolutely! Another great example. I believe that's about the time soccer games started to have their biggest leaps in progress.
@dkxcalibur so true, in the early 2000s when 2K was under the stewardship of Sega Sports, they published quality NFL and NHL games that gave EA a run for the money.
@Sun_wukong Yeah the 2K Dreamcast Sega Sports games were all really good. The NBA games especially caught my attention and I played them a tonne - and this coming from someone who generally doesn't play sports games. Its a real shame what's happened to them since those days.
At least the 1st game for switch can’t be a Legacy Edition
I think it would be interesting to see what a football game by 2K would be like. It's about time what is currently FIFA gets some competition. NBA2K was always better, imo, than EA's NBA Jam, would be interesting to see how that would go if the two competed in the scene of football games.
There is obviously no way the non EA FIFA has no microtransactions
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