December 8^th, 2004 (10:58am) - Visual Concepts’ ESPN-branded sports games have met successful sales numbers over the past year due to the bargain bin, twenty-dollar price tags placed on games such as NFL 2K5 and NBA 2K5.

Because of the jump in sales, competitor and publishing giant Electronic Arts decided to lower the price of their respective line of "2005" sports games to risk losing potential sales to Take-Two and SEGA. However, it has been revealed that Take-Two and SEGA will pursue "premium pricing" of their next generation sports games.

"We continue to evaluate pricing," said Take-Two executive VP Cindi Buckwalter. "When the next-generation hardware comes out, we do expect to introduce the sports products at premium prices."

These comments, spoken at the UBS Media Week Conference last week, confirm that Take-Two and SEGA will price their next generation sports videogames in the $50 price range. However, it is unknown if whether or not next year’s instalments for the current generation of videogame consoles will still be priced at the current bargain bin price. If one were to assume, they’d probably say "Yes."

Visuals Concepts’ first next generation sports titles should be expected to make their debut on Microsoft’s successor to the Xbox, the Xbox 2, in Fall of 2005.