By Brian Ekberg

With shockwaves still emanating from EA's bombshell announcement that it had secured exclusive rights to the NFL license for all games appearing on consoles, handhelds, and the PC for the next five years, many sports gaming fans are probably still dazed. While rumors of an NFL exclusivity deal had been making the rounds in industry circles for years--and speculation on the actual price tag of such a deal broke out in May--it took the actual December 13 announcement for it to finally become a reality in many people's minds.

In truth, this most recent turn is just one in a long history of competitive jockeying for market share between EA and Sega. While 2004 may have been the year in which the fight really heated up over perhaps the most valuable license in American sports video games, the actual conflict has its roots in the final days of Sega's Dreamcast console. Here, we take a look at the early days of the Sega-EA dispute over the NFL video game market, beginning with the emergence of the current generation of consoles.

2001: NFL 2K2 Goes Multiconsole

One consistent question was on the lips of all sports gamers when the Dreamcast was released in 1999: Would EA ever develop sports games specifically for the Sega system? After all, during the previous console generation, EA had been slow to release an iteration of its Madden series on the Nintendo 64, due to the success of the title on the original PlayStation. Despite the DC being the first console release in the current generation of consoles, EA made it no secret that it had little interest in bringing its popular line of sports titles to the platform.

Sega, while chagrined by EA's snub, had its own burgeoning line of sports franchises to worry about: NFL 2K and NBA 2K, both of which were well received by fans and critics alike. Still, as the Dreamcast continued to flail in an increasingly crowded marketplace, it was clear that, to survive, the NFL 2K series would need to expand beyond the orange swirl. In 2001, that's exactly what happened, as NFL 2K2 was the first game in the 2K franchise to make an appearance on multiple consoles.

NFL 2K2 was first released for the DC in September, but the real fun began when the PS2 version made its debut two months after. Two months after that (and just a few weeks before Super Bowl XXXVI), the Xbox version of the game was released. Meanwhile, EA staggered eight versions of Madden 2002 that year (including releases on the N64, Game Boy Advance, and the Game Boy Color). The Madden series would not see a game released on that many platforms until 2004, when Madden NFL 2005 came out on the Zodiac, the Nintendo DS, and the dearly departed original PlayStation.

2002: Online Gaming Emerges

With the Dreamcast no more and Sega's NFL 2K series safely harbored among this generation's console survivors, the battle's focus shifted entirely toward who could dominate the current playing field. To that end, the thought on sports publishers' minds was the increasingly exciting prospect of online play. EA was more than a year away from announcing support for Microsoft's Xbox Live service, so NFL 2K3 had that console's online service all to itself. Both NFL 2K3 and EA's Madden 2003 made online appearances on Sony's PS2, however, and while the results were mixed for online performance, the future was clear: Any sports game without an online component from here on out would most likely be a disappointment.

While the Madden series had traditionally relied on its homegrown look and feel, which featured series namesake John Madden as its color analyst, Madden 2003 upped the presentation ante with the introduction of Al Michaels, who just happened to share the commentary booth with Madden on Monday Night Football broadcasts. The addition of Michaels (and the removal of former play-by-play man Pat Summerall) enhanced the presentation's quality, and using a real-life TV duo further immersed gamers in the notion that they were part of a real NFL experience.

Not to be outdone, Sega's 2K series got a presentation boost of its own when, in May 2002, the company announced a licensing agreement with ESPN. While it would still be a year before gamers could enjoy the full benefits of the licensing agreement in the 2K series, the addition of the ESPN graphics and music did for NFL 2K3 what the addition of Al Michaels did for Madden 2003, only to a greater degree. NFL 2K3 was actually the second time the ESPN brand made its way into an NFL video game in 2002, as the Xbox version of ESPN NFL Primetime 2002 was released in January of that year, to mediocre fan response. It would be 2003, however, that the ESPN brand was used to full effect, and the 2K series was retitled to better showcase the name of the sports broadcasting giant.