 No surprise, NBA 2K waited till just last minute with less than 2 months before releasing the game to finally give us some news, but from release dates to cover athletes to next gen vs previous gen to cross play, there's a lot of news 2K just dropped about the upcoming NBA 2K 22, and it seems like they're back at it again, so let's get into it. Y'all new to the channel man, be sure to subscribe, my voice sounds a little different, I'm sick, forgive me, alright so let's get into it, let's not waste any time. Well, NBA 2K started the day by announcing the cover athlete for the base version of the game, which is Luka Donchich. A few weeks ago I dropped the video, basically diving deep into whether or not Reddit really had as much power as people say they do over the development of NBA 2K, and I came to the conclusion if Luka becomes a cover athlete, Reddit holds all the power. Guys, Luka became the cover athlete, Reddit does hold all the power. In my opinion, I love the vibrant colors, I love the fact that they went with a young superstar, I don't mind the cover. Now, is there fans that made better covers? Absolutely, but is this also a good cover in my opinion? Yeah, it is. Well, then they didn't hold back much because they dropped a legends cover as well, including Karim, Dirk Nowitzki, and Durans. This one, not too huge a fan of, but I mean some superstars, you know what I'm saying, some all-time athletes on the cover, I don't mind it. And then they followed that up with the surprise cover, which is Candace Parker on the WNBA edition celebrating, I believe, the 25th anniversary of the WNBA. I don't know the differences you're gonna see between the base version and the WNBA edition of the game, but if you do want to support the WNBA, I guess, they know it's gonna get pressed. They know it might go trending if they do it because it's the first female to ever grace the cover of an NBA 2K game. 2K is good business decision, good PR decision, everybody's happy. Of course, we then saw the cover athletes react. Luca says huge honor to be on the cover of NBA 2K 22, thanks NBA 2K. Dirk says not sure who these other guys are, but huge honor to be on the cover of 2K 22. And KD said honor to share the NBA 2K's 75th anniversary cover with the greats. Korean went on a whole tangent, and Candace Parker also mirrored the same. So then I thought maybe the news would be done, but 2K did continue, and they gave me full-on blue balls because they dropped this here teaser. You might have thought like, agent, why did you pause it? Someone's gonna happen. Nothing was actually gonna happen. That was the entirety of the video. That's actually on par for some promotional thing they're doing to launch NBA 2K 22. I mean, I saw content creators like Jake Canada say, anyone anywhere can be the NBA 2K 22 cover star. Stacks also saying something similar. Anyone anywhere can be the NBA 2K 22 cover star. I guess, I mean, they're trying to make it all inclusive. Okay, 2K, does it get me excited about the game? No, sure, that's the way you want to go with it. So I actually want to get something correct that I had a misconception about throughout the course of the NBA 2. My nose is clogged right now. Do I, hi guys, do I sound like this? Jesus man. Let's clarify something real quick. I was under the impression that 2K 21 next gen between the current and next gen version of the game just sold poorly. And that's mainly because we saw reports like this saying NBA 2K 21 sells 8 million copies despite $70 price hike. So the game is more expensive than it's ever been. That's before you even jump in and deal with the microtransactions. They sold 8 million copies. Now this was reported in February. I thought 2K was panicking because the game wasn't selling well, yada, yada, yada. Turns out, that's not the case. Check this out. So this is a 2K 22 sales at 8 million and this was launched in February as well. So at the same time in February, both games 2K 20 was sold well and 2K 21 both had 8 million. Now we don't have any updated reports since that report about 2K 21. But if we look at this tweet here, Daniel says NBA 2K 20 has sold 14 million units and net bookings have exceeded more than 1 billion since its launch. So if 2K 20 had 8 in February, 2K 21 has 8 in February, you could reasonably expect 2K 21 to be around the same ballpark as 14 million units. That on top of the fact that it's more, the game has been more expensive than it's ever been, 2K might have had another career year. Back to back to back to back. It's like they can't miss. So there's different versions of the game and 2K Intel dropped some screenshots here to clarify. The base version of the game, you get the base version, 5000 VC, 5000 my team points, 10 my team promo packs, and then et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But for the Legends Edition, you get the base game, 100K VC, 10K my team points, and 10K my team tokens, a whole bunch of cards, promo packs, and packs, and boosts, and boosts, and cover athlete shirts. I mean, there's a lot of different bundles, and you kind of have to decide which version of the game you want if you even want the game at all. But power help clarify on Twitter, that's what he said. Here's what I'm understanding so far. NBA 2K 22 Cross Gen is the best for people playing both gents. NBA 2K 2275th Anniversary Edition is good for people playing both gents, and or people who play my team and want extra bonuses. And it seems like 2K is doing their best to diversify internationally now, because it's no secret 2K has a Chinese version, Korean version, English version, Spanish version, and I also heard Japanese version of the game. All of those games have different covers that would just sell well, and you know, just like movies, when you release a Marvel movie, it's not going to release the same in China or in Russia, it's going to release in America, because those markets aren't the same as this market. 2K knows that, 2K is doing their best to appease each market. 2K is also owned by a Chinese gaming giant Tencent Games, so if for those who don't know, 2K is pretty invested in like the Chinese basketball market already, so there's no surprise to see at least a Chinese version NBA 2K. Power then got on Twitter to also explain, I think the demo is not releasing in Asia. I found the demo Q&A and they said the demo is going to be released, however this question is only found for countries in Asia. There's no question or answer on other countries except Asian countries, just something I noticed. I love a shout out power, I'm gonna leave his link in the description bro, because just from scrolling, I was reading a whole bunch of rumors saying that there's going to be no demo at all, but I think it is important to provide context that this is not the case for all regions, we don't know if it's for all regions yet. There might not be a demo, there might be a demo, but it's too early to say confirm that there's going to be no demo. And this is actually the posting question that everybody's been talking about, will there be a demo version of NBA 2K 22 this year? The answer is no, although the demo version is regular content released by NBA 2K, we decided not to release the demo version this year, but instead focus on creating fully functioning games of this generation and previous generation. So I mean the chances that there is a demo or isn't a demo, I personally don't care about the demo too much. As long as they're focusing on the full game and when it comes out, it's nice and clean and polished, it ain't gotta be perfect, but it has to at least be functional, then I'm happy. I know guys, my bar has gotten so low, I'm aware, I'm aware. So the news continued, it's been a flurry of news today ladies, and feel like I've enjoyed the video and drop a like, subscribe to the channel. There's a question that was asked and an answer that was given. Will there be any cross-progression or cross-play between the different versions of NBA 2K 22 or the modes? There will not be cross-play between the different consoles or PC, there will however be cross-progression in my team across generations of consoles. I don't know where this screenshot was gotten from, but let's rock with it and assume it's correct, this has been the case for NBA 2K 21 next gen. This does hint to the fact that there might be a different experience on current and next gen between the city and the park or whatever they decide to call it, but the my team experience will likely be pretty much the same. Also I made a video a couple months ago, I mean y'all subscribe, you put on notice, you know, about cross-playing why it's unlikely 2K will go in that direction. They most likely will eventually, but right now they actually aren't incentivized to do so because it doesn't make them any money. It actually cost them money out of pocket to make cross-play happen. It's not that the technology doesn't exist, it exists and they can implement it in the games, it would just cost them money. And what we know about 2K guys, are they gonna do something just because it's the right thing to do? No guys, they want to be paid to do it. Like I'll leave that link at the top of the description at the end of the video, I'll leave an end screen if you guys want to catch up and watch that full video. I'll say this 2K, the problem with next gen wasn't that the gameplay was horrible, it wasn't great, it was mid. It just wasn't fun to play. Like you had to inject some fun into the game somehow. I don't know at what point in video game creation, we just forgot about the fact that the game has to be fun. I think it might be tied to the fact that 2K is trying to get closer and closer to like a realistic basketball experience. And it's like, it's a video game though. You want it to look like real life and to a certain extent simulate real life, but it's a balance. You also want it to be fun. But you don't actually enjoy war, but you enjoy playing Call of Duty, right? There's a difference. You gamify it and make it fun so that the experience is enjoyable. So I mean, as long as that's the focus, and I hope that's the focus with 2K22, I think everything's gonna be cool. Again, I wouldn't keep my hopes up personally, because I've been making 2K videos since 2K15 now. It's been a while. And I just know I wouldn't let myself down knowingly. We've seen some great 2Ks like 19 and 16 and 11. We've seen them. We've seen some 2Ks that were on the brink of being nice and just didn't have that final push. And we've seen some abhorrently garbage, horribly embarrassing triple A products. We've seen them all. So I'm kind of going into this with no expectations. I'm trying not to fall for the hype, because inevitably 2K ends up getting me hyped every single year. I mean, they're good at what they do. Like how could you not be excited after a horrible dry garbage year of 2K? You're gonna want to be excited about the next game, because by default, you're just looking forward to something. I also want to say, I've been scrolling through the comments on these different posts that 2K has been making to see what other people are saying in the community. A lot of people are asking for old stuff back. And while I do agree, if something is doing well, don't change it. Like keep it the same and add to it maybe. Everyone asking for affiliations back and this back and that is like, y'all keep wanting to go back in time, but that stuff gets old after a while too. You can't just keep the same stuff. You have to add on top of it. So I also allowed 2K an opportunity to try something new, knowing that even when they do try something new most of the time, they fall flat on their face. And it usually doesn't end up working and it goes horribly. Some of my favorite modes that I enjoy playing right now is because 2K tried something new. My park in 2K14, my player in 2K10, the crew in 2K11. 2K, you talk a lot about innovation. I want to see it here. There was a video I reacted to from an NBA 2K dev about like two months ago. And in the video, he explained that the first year of the next generation is like so much new technology. It's impossible to get it all. But on the second and third year, they fine tune it to make it perfect. Not perfect, but as good as it can be to optimize for next generation. So it's been a couple of years now, guys. Next generation technology has been out. I feel like there should be no excuse for this game dropping in the same condition that 2K21 NextGen dropped in. For those wondering the release date, 2K has officially announced that the game comes out September 10th. I'm not sure if this applies to both current and next gen. I don't think so. I feel like it'd be a crazy decision to drop both of them on the same day. This might just apply for current gen version of the game. So I guess we have to wait to see what the next gen launch date is gonna be. Possibly in November, maybe late October. So financially, 2K is better than it's ever been and in a great position to capitalize on the next year. But in terms of just the community, 2K, this is like I will argue and a lot of people will argue a make or break at year. It would be nice to see some support all year round for the devs to not just vanish once the game launches. I think everybody watching this video fully understands that it's probably really challenging to develop a AAA game from home and during the Rona with all this going on next generation technology, all kind of different supply. Like people can't get access to consoles. We know, like there's plenty of different challenges stopping you or getting in the way from you polishing up the game. But also people are buying the game for now an all new high of $70. And then once they get in the game, they drop another 50 on their player and 50 on packs and 50 on a new player and it doesn't end. When you drop so much on a video game, you just expect for it to be playable. And for the first month of 2K 21 next gen, it was not playable. So I'm excited to see if this game comes out twice. Like it did this year. I'm excited to see when that happens. If both games can be good. If only one's going to be good, I'm excited. I'm excited that I don't have to play 2K 21 next gen ever again. Dry game. For those who don't know, there was a report when they dropped the city last year that Ronnie already confirmed that they were going to be working on the city and just making improvements on it for next year, which makes sense. The likelihood that they would drop like a map that big and just give up on it after one year is low. So we can reasonably assume that the city is going to be back for 2K 22 based on the information we had last year. But again, it's Ronnie 2K and he's capped plenty of times previously. So I wouldn't say nothing is confirmed, man. That's all the news we have, ladies and gentlemen. Drop the like if you guys enjoyed. There's a video right here. If you guys want to know why cross play isn't going to be in this year's NBA 2K, but why it might be in years next, I'll catch you guys in the next one. I'm out. Peace.