NFL 2K3

ESPN NFL 2K

ESPN NFL 2K (originally NFL 2K) was an American football video game series developed by Visual Concepts and jointly published by Sega and ESPN.

History

The NFL 2K series was introduced by Sega for its Dreamcast to address EA Sports's decision not to publish the Madden NFL series on the Dreamcast. The first two installments (NFL 2K and NFL 2K1) were exclusive to the Dreamcast, but with the demise of the Dreamcast, the NFL 2K series was repositioned as the main multiplatform rival to the Madden NFL series. Both series were released on the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube. With the cancellation of the NFL GameDay (989 Sports) and NFL Fever (Microsoft Game Studios) series in 2003, NFL 2K (then ESPN NFL Football) truly became Madden NFL's primary competition.

In 2004, Sega signed a deal with Take-Two Interactive in which Global Star (Take-Two's low-price unit) distributed and co-published all titles in Sega's ESPN franchise. As a result, ESPN NFL 2K5 was priced at $19.99 the day it shipped (versus the typical new-release price of $49.99). This earned it a wide audience among more casual football fans on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. It was also the first time that the ESPN NFL series managed to grab a significant chunk of market share over the competitor, the Madden NFL series.

However, in December 2004, EA signed an exclusive agreement with the NFL, making Madden NFL the only series allowed to use NFL team and player names. EA also signed an agreement with ESPN to become the only licensee of ESPN's brand in sports games on all platforms. This was an immense blow to Sega's franchise in their MLB, NBA, and NHL series.

Although the NFL 2K series is no longer made, fans of the game can download unofficial rosters made by other players by using an Action Replay device.

2K Sports currently has a spiritual successor to the ESPN NFL 2K series, in the form of All-Pro Football 2K8 which features former NFL players such as Joe Montana, Barry Sanders, John Elway, Walter Payton, and Jerry Rice.

The commentary is done by Dan Stevens (Terry McGovern) and Peter O'Keefe (Jay Styne). The fictional Michelle Westphal (Marcia Perry) provided occasional sideline reports from NFL 2K until NFL 2K3. ESPN NFL Football and ESPN NFL 2K5, however, featured sideline reporting from ESPN's Suzy Kolber.

Soundtracks

ESPN's intros are used for most of the earlier games in the series as menu music but that changed with the introduction of ESPN NFL 2K5. The Soundtrack featured Superstar by Aceyalone, "Like Smak" by Raw Intel Crew, "Drumbox", "Outrun", and "OST Remix" from ...Or Stay Tuned by People Under The Stairs. Another soundtrack that comes with the game are the "bloopers" by the announcers. The player was given an option to choose whether to use ESPN intro music or the custom soundtrack.

Installments

Title	Release date	Console(s)	Cover athlete
NFL 2K	September 9, 1999	Dreamcast	Randy Moss
NFL 2K1	September 7, 2000	Dreamcast	Randy Moss
NFL 2K2	September 19, 2001	Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, Xbox	Randy Moss
NFL 2K3	August 20, 2002	GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox	Brian Urlacher
ESPN NFL Football	September 2, 2003	PlayStation 2, Xbox	Warren Sapp
ESPN NFL 2K5	July 20, 2004	PlayStation 2, Xbox	Terrell Owens

Other installments

ESPN NFL Primetime 2K2 featuring Edgerrin James on its cover was the last of a long running videogame football series created by Konami. This was the last installment of Primetime football before 2K Sports secured the rights to use the ESPN brandname.
All-Pro Football 2K8, released July 17th, 2007, is a game that is the revival of the series and uses NFL Legends and fictional teams, some of which are named after defunct football franchises from the AFL, WFL, and United States Football League.

Trivia

NFL 2K1, released on the Dreamcast in September 2000, was one of the first games to implement online console gaming through the use of SegaNet.
NFL 2K4 was released with a guerilla marketing campaign to promote it's new "Crash Cam" feature. A blog was created by a "beta tester" alleging that the new feature caused him to continually black out at sporadic times. The site is still available, but posting has ceased as of September 2003.
In ESPN NFL 2K5, the feature "The Crib" offers a feature called the "celebrity phone", which allows the player to play "celebrities" such as Funkmaster Flex, Steve-O, Jamie Kennedy, David Arquette, and Carmen Electra in a "Play Now" Game.
In ESPN NFL 2K5, there is a feature that tells about the sport of football and the terminology of the game.
In 2K5, the game featured ESPN's 25th Anniversary of the top 25 NFL moments of NFL lore, from the Ice Bowl to 4th and 26 in which you can join the game and play it.
NFL 2K and 2K1 for the Dreamcast became Sega All Stars titles. Due to the consoles short lifespan in North America, few other Dreamcast games became Sega All Stars.

Notable Free Agents

In 2K3 Tony Siragusa is still with the Baltimore Ravens and Bruce Matthews is still with the Tennessee Titans.
In 2K5 retired Tight End Shannon Sharpe is a free agent, he signed a deal with ESPN shortly after.
In 2K5 Tim Brown is still with the Oakland Raiders despite signing with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before the season.
In 2K5 Eddie George is still with the Titans.
In 2K5 Asante Samuel(of the New England Patriots) is a free agent.
In 2K5 Quincy Carter is the starting QB for the Dallas Cowboys and not Vinny Testaverde.
In 2K3 Doug Flutie is still the starting QB for the Chargers and not Drew Brees.