NHL 2K Omission May Be Sign of Cancellation

Ever since Take Two decided to shut down College Hoops due to the lack of sales potential vs development costs the next game that appeared to be in danger was the NHL 2K series. Sales have been dropping to miniscule levels as EA Sports NHL has grown and dominated the market. While it has been clear that resources have been limited with NHL 2K there have been no official statements made as to the future of the franchise.

However now there is an indication that NHL 2K11 may not be in development. In the Q4 fiscal report from Take Two on Thursday the games planned for the next fiscal year were laid out. Noticeably absent from the list is the mention of NHL 2K11.

One might think it was just an omission or the game was too far out from release to be cited. That is not the case though as NBA 2K11 is included and the NBA game comes out a month after the NHL game. The list is based on all titles planned for the coming year.

I went back to the previous year’s press release for Q4 2008 results which does display NHL 2K10 as being on the horizon. The 2007 Q4 report mentions NHL 2K9. That suggests there is a reason that it’s missing this time around.

When College Hoops was canceled it wasn’t until mid-January that Take Two made an official statement. Interestingly enough it was missing from the mentioned titles in that fiscal report but it wasn’t known until a month later that it was gone for good. That seems to be the exact situation that we have here with NHL 2K.

So there really may be something to this. Just recently it was 2K Sports MLB license deal that was stated to be the drag on the company but no mention was made regarding NHL one way or the other. Should any news make its way out regarding the future of NHL 2K I will be sure to update.

(Update) With response from 2K Sports