14 DAY TRIAL // Take-Two released its fiscal report for the fourth quarter last week and things don't look very good at all. While its Borderlands did very well, which isn't at all surprising considering just how much fun the game proved to be, the rest of its titles proved to be an economical liability. The company reported a 37-percent drop in profits, and this comes only to counter its firm statements that the company can still be effective in a non-GTA year. But the fiscal report revealed another interesting thing, and this time around it's about the future, and about the past.
At its end-year fiscal report, Take-Two usually takes the opportunity to announce its upcoming titles and parade them in front of its investors. There are several franchises that have yearly additions to them, so these rarely make any news, but, this time around, NHL 2K decided that it was time to step out of the shadows and make a personal statement. The game “told the world how he felt with the sound of a gap,” as there was no trace of it in the released fiscal report. While MLB 2K11 and a new NBA 2K11 have been announced, the hokey series didn't receive an additional title and seems to be down on the ice, frozen solid.
In the sports game genre, Take-Two has seen a main competitor in EA, and truth be told, the company felt second with its games, at least as far as sales went. While its latest hokey game, NHL 2K10, was brought to the Wii with a rather large TV advertisement campaigns and was very well received by the critics, the game didn't prove to be as successful when it came to financial results. Sales were mediocre at best, and this turned out to be another unprofitable move by the company.
As far as the official story for another NHL 2K game goes, a 2K Sports representative said that, “We are currently in the process of evaluating our sports portfolio and have not announced any new NHL titles at this time,” which pretty much translated into, “We've killed the game. There won't be a funeral.”