Very rarely do you see a football game so good that it can manage to outseat the mighty Madden. But on July 20, 2004, that’s exactly what happened with ESPN NFL 2K5.

Sega released the game on that date for Xbox and PlayStation 2, shipping it for the monumentally low price of $19.99 – way lower than EA Sports’ competition. And that made it a bigger seller than anyone could’ve imagined. The game featured the full support of the ESPN team – including Chris Berman, who hosted a SportsCenter-led franchise mode feature for the game. It also featured full-fledged gameplay straight out of the series, along with fun visuals, online play, and the kind of play-by-play that fans had come to expect.

In fact, one EA Sports developer said that the game “scared the hell out of us” upon its release. And as a result, six months later, EA Sports worked out a deal with the NFL to obtain the rights exclusively for its games for several years. That would eventually result in 2K Sports shutting down making any football games for several years, save for All Pro Football 2K8, which was pretty much a one-and-done experiment on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 years later. EA also obtained a license for ESPN shortly thereafter.

Boy, Sega sure scared EA there for a second, didn’t it? With the game’s release, the company had pretty much made one of the greatest football games ever made. Not only was it affordable, but it was a genuinely well-playing affair, loaded with options and fun features galore. And it looked and sounded terrific at the time, even topping Madden NFL 2004’s presentation in some respects. And players got a kick out of being able to create their own team, as well as their own city, logos and even their own stadium – a feature that Madden was sorely lacking at the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBAUry4uV34

The game sold 1.7 million copies, making Sega a MAD amount of money. And many still consider it one of the best releases out there. But, again, EA waved its cash and pretty much won by…cheating, perhaps? Alas, there are still copies out there in the wild, so for those of you that are feeling nostalgic and celebratory for the good ol’ days of football, hey, go nuts!

ESPN NFL 2K5 is available for Xbox and PlayStation 2. Of course, we highly recommend giving it another run, just for old time’s sake. And we’re pretty sure you can find it for way cheaper than most football games these days…

Shares:

Drop a Reply