[coogrfan]

Quote: Originally Posted by FaceMask

Lots of interesting things there. I understand what you think is an issue, and I can understand why the general consumer would look at it that way, but it's all conjecture. This is not how the NFL was thinking at the time, nor are they today. As long as they're getting paid 10's of Millions upfront, they're not going to care what the retail price of a product is. It doesn't work that way. This was purely an EA vs. 2K issue concerning pricing, profit margin and market share.

With respect, I believe you're seriously mistaken here. It is my understanding that back when EA and Sega were both in the football game business the NFL/NFLPA did not get paid up front:

Quote: Originally Posted by DrJones

In the "olden days", the 3 companies paid the NFL/PA a royalty per unit sold, at roughly 10%. Let's say the total football market is about 6 million units. 6 million x $60 x 10% = $36M annually to the NFL. The current EA deal with the NFL pays them between $60M-$70M per year, regardless of units sold.

If this is correct (and DrJones was in a position to know since he actually worked for EA prior to "the Great Purge") that means that Sega wound up paying the NFL only a $1.99 per unit sold instead of $4.99. The notion that the NFL wouldn't care about this or the precedent it might set vis a vis their other business partners is fanciful at best.

Quote: Originally Posted by FaceMask

Besides, 2K wasn't planning to keep the price at that level forever. This was a one-time thing to gain market visibility, and boy did it work. For as much as their is conjecture about cheapening, what nobody is considering is how confident 2K had to be that their product would be responded to in the way it was. Had it bombed, it would've likely ended their development on football. Everything they did that year was white knuckle and rebellious, and I loved every minute of it.

Confident or desperate? Again according to VGChartz:


NFL 2k3 (North America) PS2 1.06 million units + XB .38 million units = 1.44 million units


ESPN NFL Football (aka NFL 2k4) PS2 .27 million units + XB .27 million total = .54 million


That's a 62% drop in sales from 2002 to 2003. Under those circumstances I can certainly understand why Sega felt they needed to roll the dice.

Quote: Originally Posted by FaceMask

Unfortunately, football development ended anyway because of the licensing issue, but 2K did take a huge leap of faith there because they believed in themselves that their product deserved more share because it was good enough, and I agreed with them. So did about 4.26 Million others.

Perhaps. The fact that it was an licensed NFL game for a mere $20 and it was released three weeks before Madden (July 20th vs Aug 9th) may have had little something to do with those numbers as well.