You have to hand it to 2K Sports. They’ve had the basketball console gaming court to themselves for the past several years, yet they keep upping the ante.
Two weeks after announcing that 14-time Grammy winner Shawn “Jay Z” Carter would serve as executive producer for NBA 2K13, the game publisher Wednesday unveiled a partnership with USA Basketball that will put both the 2012 gold medal-winning U.S. men’s national basketball team and the original 1992 Olympic “Dream Team” front-and-center in this year’s installment of its game. And they did so with no less than “His Airness,” Michael Jordan, leading a conference call.
“2K Sports has been a true partner in bridging the gaps in the generations of basketball fans,” Jordan told reporters at the top of the call. 2K will shortly offer a transcript of the conference call, and Speakeasy will link to it when it’s available.
In a sense, this week’s announcement has been three years in the making. There’s always a flurry of folderol ahead of a video game launch, but 2K has become one of the best at grabbing headlines with big names. They did it two years ago, announcing they had signed Michael Jordan, bringing his virtual self back into console gaming after a long, long hiatus. MJ both graced the cover and was featured centrally in NBA 2K11’s “Jordan Challenge.” NBA 2K11 came out in the last quarter of 2010, after key rival EA Sports announced it was pausing and rebooting its own crumbling basketball game franchise.
Last year, even without any direct competition, 2K Sports rolled out two of Jordan’s two biggest rivals and “Dream Teammates,” Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Larry Bird, as cover models for the 2K12 game and included 12 other all-time greats, among them several other 1992 “Dream Team” members, though they were all in their NBA team uniforms inside the game. Dream matchups were a centerpiece in last year’s edition of NBA 2K.
This year, you get the entire, 12-member original “Dream Team,” plus the 2012 version in the game that’s due out for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii PSP and Microsoft Windows PCs in early October and later on the Wii U console. While MJ was the MC of Wednesday’s conference call, neither he nor the other old-timers are cover boys. That honor belongs to up-and-comers Blake Griffin, Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose. Durant recently picked up a gold medal as a member of the 2012 “Dream Team” at the London Olympics.
Jason Argent, vice president of marketing for 2K Sports, told Speakeasy in a written reply to questions that the constant quest for one-upsmanship over the previous year’s game is likely to continue. Even unopposed, customers like something new and improved.
“There’s an old saying, good is the enemy of great, a theme that we hold close at 2K Sports. As mentioned before, we have an extremely talented development team, and we’re never truly satisfied. – There have been lots of long nights debating what if or what could we do to make the game better from last year. This attitude is contagious across the company and is what’s pushed us to produce what we feel is the best basketball game on the market today. Our goal at the start of each development cycle is not a sales figure, it’s to surpass what we’ve previously done and what anyone else has done and so far that mentality has worked out extremely well for us. Sticking with this philosophy, we feel we’ll fare well in this, and future markets,” Argent wrote.
Argent said fans have responded positively to the addition of big names and new features, with the last two NBA 2K titles selling over a combined 9.5 million copies since release.
Argent said improvements in this year’s game include introduction of the control stick – which lets gamers use the right controller stick for dribbling, shooting and passing – and a dynamic shot generator, which will “help dynamically branch shots in real time.” 2K Sports also offers an All-Star pre-order bonus so fans can participate in the event’s three point-shootout and dunk contests. Players in the game are modeled from real-life players, including signature moves.
In addition to the refined and enhanced gameplay 2K Sports promises every year, the wholly owned unit of New York-based Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., released NBA 2K13’s hot soundtrack with its Jay Z announcement earlier this month. 2K said Jay Z handpicked the 24 songs, which include six that feature him (“Pump it Up,” “Run This Town,” “The Bounce,” “On to the Next One,” “Public Service Announcement” and an instrumental version of “H.A.M.”). Other artists on the track include Too Short, Phoenix, Puff Daddy and the Family, Kanye West, Mobb Deep, Justice, Coldplay, Roy Ayers, Meek Mill, Daft Punk Eric B. and Rakim, the Hours, the Dirty Projectors and Santigold.
Beside handpicking songs, Jay Z has been extremely active and hands-on in his role as executive producer, Argent wrote. It has been that way since 2K first approached the musical artist, who also owns a small piece of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets and designed the team’s logo.
“Meeting with him in New York, his first comment was that he didn’t want to stand on the sidelines – he wanted to play a legitimate role in NBA 2K13′s development,” Argent said. “As a result, the Dream Team, Charles Barkley, and the USAB license wouldn’t be here without him – bringing the two Olympic teams was a direct mandate by him to do so, and even he even went as far as giving Charles a personal call to help secure him for the 2012 roster. Beyond that, Jay Z’s deep knowledge of music, art and culture will have a distinct impact on this year’s title, details of which we’ll reveal in a few weeks.”
As an aside, the conference call with Jordan was interesting, with the retired star and owner of the Charlotte Bobcats not backing off at all from his assertion that the 1992 “Dream Team” was better than Kobe Bryant’s 2012 version. It was Bryant who started the debate ahead of the Olympics by saying his team would have beaten the original. In response to a reporter’s question, Jordan ran through his reasoning on the call, though acknowledging both teams, good in their own way, came away with gold.
“Well, I knew that was going to be a debate. It is a debate. We’ll never know, but let’s talk about it if you want to talk about it. I know Kobe said some things early on, and I responded. The 92 Dream team was, I felt, a more well-rounded basketball team. He thought we were a little old…So, I think the team, itself, would have been well-rounded defensively, offensively, inside, outside. I just felt like we had enough size that we could contend with the 2012 team. One of the things the 2012 team lacked was size. We probably would have attacked them from inside and then outside. Our defense would have been pretty much solidified with the shot blockers as well as perimeter defensive players,” Jordan said. “I don’t think we would have had any problems with them.”
Jordan speculated that the ability to play the two teams head-to-head in NBA 2K13 would probably generate more debate – not less — about which team reigns supreme.
“I think it’s going to be great. The stats are going to illustrate the kind of talent we had in 1992,” he said. “The best part is that fans get to experience that, and enter into the game either from the 1992 ‘Dream Team’ or the 2012.”
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