What is with 2005 being such a magical year for sports games?

Submitted by TyraelTrion t3_10sypp5 in consoles

Arguably some of the top sports games of all time for their respective sports all come from 2004-2005 era.

Golf - Tiger Woods 2005 (honorable mentions to arcadey golf like Hot Shots and Mario Golf)

Baseball - MVP baseball 2005 is consensus among alot of people

Football - Espn 2k5

Basketball - NBA 2k11 (Okay finally an exception to the rule).

But I was just pondering this today and it is really amazing how many great games this era produced not just in sports but in most of the genres.

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budrow21 t1_j74bzt2 wrote

I don't know about all that. 1993 saw the release of NBA Jam and NHL 94, which is sometimes referred to as "both the greatest sports game of all time as well as one of the best games ever made". Then there was Mutant League Football too. Pretty good all around.

I'm mostly just giving you a hard time. Any evidence these games are truly superior, or do you think it's more about when you grew up and these games hitting at just the right time?

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WikiSummarizerBot t1_j74c1ml wrote

NHL '94

>NHL '94 is an ice hockey game by EA Sports for the Genesis, Super NES, and Sega CD, as well as the first release for the PC (DOS), simply titled "NHL Hockey", without the "94" in the title. The game is officially licensed from the National Hockey League and the NHL Players' Association, and was the first game in the series to have both combined licenses. Being the third game in the NHL series media franchise, it was released in October 1993. NHL '94 launched to critical acclaim, and it has since been referred to as both the greatest sports game of all time as well as one of the best games ever made.

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TyraelTrion OP t1_j74ib8p wrote

Of course when dealing with stuff like this its ALWAYs subjective. But I have been doing alot of research on best sports games of all time lists for basis of seeing if I missed any good ones for emulation and these repeatedly kept popping up. A few articles I saw had ESPN 2k5 As the best sports ever in any sport.

https://www.complex.com/sports/best-sports-video-games - This has EPSN2K5 beating everyone and the games I mentioned before crack the top 10.

https://screenrant.com/best-baseball-video-games-all-time-reddit/ - According to reddit MVP Baseball 2005 is the best

https://www.mlb.com/news/best-baseball-video-games-in-history - Even baseball's official site has it listed as the top dog.

But you get the idea, alot of googling and these names kept popping up in their respective sports over and over and its amazing it kept being 2005. My guess is that alot of people saying it is the best could be a mix of nostalgia for sure and the most common average age of users on these sites is probably when they were growing up playing these games. However, having played most of them I can say the games hold up very well even today and it is easy to see why people regard them so highly.

NBA Jam and NHL 94 were great games in their own right and I would put them up with the great arcade sports games.

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Sins_of_God t1_j75l3l0 wrote

Unfortunately extreme sports games by that time were losing their appeal

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TyraelTrion OP t1_j789517 wrote

Ah man I never played a ton of them but I really loved the old ESPN X-Treme Games launch title that was on PSX. I played that a bunch.

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creepyviolation80 t1_j763otc wrote

It's difficult to determine the exact reasons why the 2004-2005 era was a "magical year" for sports games, but several factors may have contributed to this trend:

  1. Advances in technology: The 2004-2005 era was a time when game consoles were transitioning from the sixth to the seventh generation, and developers were starting to take advantage of the improved hardware to create more advanced and immersive games.

  2. Competition among developers: With the sports gaming market becoming increasingly competitive, developers were working hard to produce high-quality games that would stand out from the crowd and appeal to fans.

  3. Fan feedback: With the growth of online communities, game developers were able to receive direct feedback from fans and use it to improve their games.

  4. Rising popularity of sports games: Sports games were becoming increasingly popular, and developers were eager to capitalize on this trend by creating games that would appeal to fans of different sports.

Ultimately, the 2004-2005 era was a time when many factors came together to create a perfect storm for the production of some of the best sports games of all time.

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TyraelTrion OP t1_j789bwt wrote

Awesome break down of a variety of factors that contributed to this. When i read it over it just makes alot of sense. The growth of online communities is something that slipped my mind but you are absolutely right that was starting to peak. Nowadays people give all the feedback in the world but whether game developers listen to it is a whole different story.

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