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[Draxon Gamer]

Marcus Matthews, the producer of the original NBA 2K and NFL 2K, has revealed on his LinkedIn profile that the first NBA 2K game, which was released back in 1999 for Dreamcast, has sold over 60 million copies in its lifetime, generating over $7 billion in revenue worldwide. The game was published by SEGA and was later released for GameCube, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3.


Timur222 on Twitter discovered the detail under the “About” section of Marcus Matthews’ LinkedIn profile. Additionally, the “About” section also revealed that Marcus Matthews had worked on overseeing the design and development of the original NBA 2K game.

The original NBA 2K game for Dreamcast set the foundation of the entire NBA 2K franchise, which is still going strong for over two decades, with their latest installment NBA 2K23, released in September 2022. The franchise is known for releasing a new installment each year and has been doing it since 1999 when the first NBA 2K game was launched. https://exputer.com/news/games/nba-2k-sold-over-6-million-copies/

Sega really lost something special when they let go of Visual Concepts, they could have been kept selling consoles. Best selling sports game of all time.

 

[Deleted member 1159]

I’m gonna go ahead and say these are franchise numbers or there’s some other kind of miscalculation because no way.

Edit

Yeah the LinkedIn bio is referencing the franchise, but it’s worded poorly so it seems like it could be the first game. There’s no way the first game sold 60m, the article is wrong.

 

[Kilau]

I was so excited for that first one on the Dreamcast, it was lacking a lot of features but absolutely jaw dropping visually. Shame the franchise is such an MTX infested shit fest now.

 

[Draxon Gamer]

I’m gonna go ahead and say these are franchise numbers or there’s some other kind of miscalculation because no way.

I doubt it, NBA2K20 made $1B alone in less than a year so who knows how much that game brought in alone before being replaced, possibly more than 2B, and that would only leave 5B left of that $7B. 2k21 made $890M just in Q4 alone and we see similar patterns for 2K22 and 23. The whole franchise has to be way more than just $7B.

 

[Ronin_7]

I’m gonna go ahead and say these are franchise numbers or there’s some other kind of miscalculation because no way.

Edit

Yeah the LinkedIn bio is referencing the franchise, but it’s worded poorly so it seems like it could be the first game. There’s no way the first game sold 60m, the article is wrong.

Yeah has to be the whole franchise.

Edit: the Sales number part.

 

[THE DUCK]

I'm still trying to figure out why they can't make at least a pc version of this game that actually looks next gen and not like a really great cartoon. Great game, cartoony graphics.

 

[rofif]

yeah no

 

[Bond007]

This game was incredible at the time
Best bball game to that point and visually phenomenal

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Never understood why Sega sold Visual Concepts and never understood why Sony didn't buy them.

 

[West Texas CEO]

2K has become a huge part of hip hop culture.

 

[Deerock71]

 

[THE DUCK]

This game was incredible at the time
Best bball game to that point and visually phenomenal

True! When it first came out for dream cast, I was blown away.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

Maybe the entire franchise, no way the first game sold that much. Also the first game wasn’t ported to other consoles, IIRC that started with 2k2.

 

[Sleepwalker]

I'm gonna go ahead and say there's less than 60m copies of that game out there, so no.

 

[Sleepwalker]

I doubt it, NBA2K20 made $1B alone in less than a year so who knows how much that game brought in alone before being replaced, possibly more than 2B, and that would only leave 5B left of that $7B. 2k21 made $890M just in Q4 alone and we see similar patterns for 2K22 and 23. The whole franchise has to be way more than just $7B.

Most of the revenue comes from MTX not copies sold, this is data from Take Two's most recent report

Take-Two Interactive all time game sales 2024 | Statista

As of November 2024, Grand Theft Auto was Take-Two Interactive's most popular video game franchise, with over 435 million unit sales.

www.statista.com

The NBA2K franchise is at lifetime 135m copies sold, the first game obviously did not sell almost half of those copies.


FIFA is the biggest sport franchise in the world in terms of game sales, it was at 325m games sold back in 2021 and with each game doing 20-30m it should be around 360-380m lifetime sales.

 

[Krappadizzle]

2K2 still probably my favorite basketball game. Haven't tried one in a long time though.

 

[Celcius]

I miss the Dreamcast NBA 2K games. I don't even play the modern ones.

 

[baphomet]

No it didn't. That's multiple times the amount of Dreamcasts even produced.

The franchise has sold 60 million, which isn't a great number for being out every year for nearly 25 years.

 

[cireza]

I’m gonna go ahead and say these are franchise numbers or there’s some other kind of miscalculation because no way.

Edit

Yeah the LinkedIn bio is referencing the franchise, but it’s worded poorly so it seems like it could be the first game. There’s no way the first game sold 60m, the article is wrong.

Obviously, lol.

 

[Skifi28]

If all dreamcast owners bought two copies of the game each, it's a reasonable number.

 

[SkylineRKR]

The original was my fave in the franchise for a long time.

 

[Draxon Gamer]

No it didn't. That's multiple times the amount of Dreamcasts even produced.

Article literally mentions other console ports.

 

[baphomet]

Article literally mentions other console ports.

The game wasn't ported to those systems.

Whoever wrote the article is an idiot.

 

[MastAndo]

I'm still trying to figure out why they can't make at least a pc version of this game that actually looks next gen and not like a really great cartoon. Great game, cartoony graphics.

...or why they abandoned the lighting system from NBA2K14, which looked incredible. The player models and animations got better, but the overall look of the game got worse for some weird reason. There's no reason a nearly 10 year old game should hold up visually to current versions.

 

[Sleepwalker]

No it didn't. That's multiple times the amount of Dreamcasts even produced.

The franchise has sold 60 million, which isn't a great number for being out every year for nearly 25 years.

The franchise has sold 135m lifetime, that 60m number is outdated

 

[baphomet]

The franchise has sold 135m lifetime, that 60m number is outdated

Exactly, so literally nothing in that shit article is correct.